Dry season kicked into high gear during October

Dry season normally starts in mid-October in Central Florida, and we definitely transitioned out of rainy season on schedule this October.

Most of east central Florida finished below normal for rainfall during the month.

Go back to mid-to-late September to find meaningful rainfall across the region.

The two spots that finished with the most rain were Melbourne and Daytona Beach.

Daytona picked up over four inches of rainfall for the month, which was only 0.8 inches below normal.

Melbourne picked up over three inches of rain. The normal rainfall for October is 4.86 inches.

Sanford had the biggest rainfall deficit.

The city finished over 2.5″ drier than the average for the month.

In Sanford, it was the 12th driest October on record. Oct. 2022 actually finished drier than this year.

That year Sanford only collected 0.70 inches of rain, however, it was a much needed break after all the rain that fell during hurricane Ian at the end of last September.

October Temperatures

The average monthly temperatures for most of east central Florida finished close to normal.

The exception was Leesburg. There, the monthly average temperature finished one degree above the average.

Elsewhere, temperatures were only about a few tenths to a half degree warmer than normal for the month.

Orlando only hit 90 degrees or hotter twice for the entire month. The hottest afternoon was 91 degrees on Oct. 13.

This was below the normal number of days Orlando hits 90 degrees during October, which is between four and five on average.

in September, Orlando hit 90 degrees or hotter 21 times.

That was above the average number of 90 degrees days for the month of September.

Through early November, Oct. 13 was the last time Orlando hit 90 degrees.

The average last 90 degree day for the year is on Oct. 14.

However, Orlando has hit 90 degrees in every month except for January since records began.

The most 90 degree days in November were six, and that was in 2015.

Most recently, in 2022, Orlando hit 90 degrees twice.

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