Seaside Cold Front, FL — Courtesy: Shutterstock — Kristi Blokhin
Fresh after the storm that dumped snow and froze much of the northeastern USA, several tornadoes hit Fort Myers, Iona, Naples, and Charlotte County Sunday along with freezing temperatures in Northern Florida Tuesday morning, comes another cold front from Canada.
According to the National Weather Service, a tornado with 118 mph winds reached land at about 7:35 a.m. in the Iona area of Fort Myers, traveling 1.8 miles and lasting a total of five minutes.
Between the last cold front and the next one, Florida temperatures are expected to rebound this week to the mid-70s, with lows reaching the mid-50s.
Forecasters with the National Weather Service predict a disturbance will move over the Great Lakes and push a freezing arctic blast of cold air towards the northern Plains with cold high-pressure creeping into the lower Mississippi River Valley by Thursday. This will bring brutal weather to the North Central states with cold temperatures moving further down south.
“As the cold Arctic air dives south, conditions will feel noticeably colder to many residents from Tuesday afternoon to Wednesday afternoon across the middle of the country,” said AccuWeather Meteorologist Nicole LoBiondo, who added that the country could be seeing a 24-hour temperature drop between 20 and 30 degrees in areas as far south as northern Texas.
The cold front is expected to hit the Sunshine State sometime Thursday night and will be back down to the low 40s and high 30s by Friday with chances of cold rain.
AccuWeather forecasters say this will start off the longest stretch of cold air so far this winter.
Will flights be delayed or canceled?
Quite possibly. According to flight tracker FlightAware, more than 6,000 flights into, out of, and within the U.S. were delayed or canceled as of noon on Tuesday. Saturday’s weather caused similar issues for nearly 8,000 flights, and Monday saw over 9,000 delays or cancellations.
This weekend, there will likely be some bouts of cold rain in North Florida along the Georgia border by the end of the week. Drier air will bring temperatures down into the upper 30s next week for areas north of Orlando. Models are still differing when predicting just how cold it may get and how much rain we may see.
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Melissa’s career in writing started more than 20 years ago. Today, she lives in South Florida with her husband and two boys.
