After a night of gusty storms, South Florida will see a windy but mostly sunny Sunday followed by calmer, cooler weather for the rest of the week.
The storm system is now ushering in a cold front moving across the state and out over the Atlantic, leaving behind drier air, the NWS Miami’s forecast said, which will bring the region’s temperatures down for the duration of the week.
High temperatures through Friday are expected to only reach the 60s or 70s with lows in the 50s and 60s for much of the week, the NWS Miami’s area forecast stated as of Sunday morning. Monday and Tuesday nights are expected to be the coolest with lows in the 40s and 50s.
Palm Beach County saw the highest rain totals, with about 3 to 4 inches of rain, while Broward and Miami-Dade counties saw about 2 to 3 inches each, said National Weather Service Miami meteorologist George Rizzuto. Previous predictions stated up to 6 inches of rain as a possibility.
“There’s not one region that really got noticeably more nailed, kind of like Fort Lauderdale did back in April. It’s very broadly 2 to 3 inches dispersed through Broward and Miami Dade,” Rizzuto said. “There’s not really one city to pick out that received a lot.”
Minor coastal flooding hit portions of Southwest Florida last night, he said, with wind gusts hitting as high as 61 mph in West Palm Beach and gusts about 40-50 mph per hour along the coast.
A wind advisory remained in effect until 1 p.m. Sunday, and the flood watch and high surf covering South Florida ended at 7 a.m.
High rip current risk is forecast to still be in effect in coastal areas of the region until late Sunday night, making minor coastal flooding possible, according to NWS Miami. The weather service warned there would be large breaking waves, which could result in life-threatening swimming and surfing, as well as significant beach erosion possible. Life-threatening rip currents are likely.
Is the Sunday night system normal for December in South Florida? Rizzuto said yes — in fact, there’s a term for it: Nor’easter.
“It’s a very typical type of storm, a low pressure system that kind of starts out down here in the lower latitudes, maybe in the Gulf, kind of like this one did, and then it rides up the eastern coast and intensifies,” he said. “That’s what this one is going to do. And it’s these types of storms that actually are responsible for a lot of blizzards in the Northeast and a lot of the really windy and hazardous conditions that they get in the winters up there.”
The worst of the severe weather in South Florida was forecast between Saturday evening and the early hours of Sunday. No tornadoes touched down in the tri-county region.
Gov. Ron DeSantis had activated the Florida State Guard to help respond to weather-related emergencies in the state and directed the state Division of Emergency Management to be ready to respond to flooding issues.
