Over the past few months Florida has seen an unusual weather pattern develop. It's not all that unusual to get severe weather in Florida during the winter time. In fact, Florida's tornado season is from January-March. They usually occur along or out head of a squall line associated with cold fronts.
El-Nino winters are certainly more active with the warm Pacific waters causing an active jet stream over the Gulf of Mexico, and over Florida. This year however, we are in a moderate to strong La-Nina cycle. All forecasts called for severe drought conditions over Florida right on through the spring.
The weather pattern during the first 2 months of 2008 has been anything but drought like. For some reason, which is still unknown to meteorologists, the jet stream has been very active over the area. We have had several rounds of severe weather followed by freezing temperatures over north and central Florida. Wind, hail, and some tornado activity has been reported on several occasions throughout this La Nina season over the Florida area, with most areas experiencing above normal rainfall.
As we put our heads together, does anyone have any ideas what could be causing this? There will be an intense study done over the next few months by the NWS in order to figure out why this is taking place. Thanks for your input.
Mike
