Weather Blog: Coldest afternoon in 304 days expected tomorrow in Fort Myers

FORT MYERS, Fla. — Brace yourselves; the coolest afternoon temperatures our community has experienced since Jan. 27 are coming soon.

It’s been a whopping 304 days since Fort Myers warmed to 66 degrees back in late January. That means Tuesday’s cool snap is a very long time coming, especially when you consider how warm (an unseasonably warm) we were through summer and early fall.

What’s unleashing the cooler air is a cold front that will be moving away from our areas over the next 24 hours. As this front pulls farther and farther away from the peninsula, winds behind it will turn northerly, allowing the cool and dry air to migrate southward.

Brief bouts of cool weather aren’t unusual in late November, but with tomorrow’s forecast high being just 68 degrees, that’ll put us 12 degrees below average for the afternoon high. Nighttime lows on Tuesday night will also be attention-grabbing as areas like Fort Myers and Cape Coral drop into the low 50s. Considering the average nighttime low this time of year is 60 degrees, many areas will be between 9 and 12 degrees cooler than what’s considered normal for this time of the year.

Thankfully this bout of cooler weather will not bring our area anything further than just a big cool down. Despite the drop in the numbers, no parts of Southwest Florida will be near or close to freezing, so we do not have any worries about frosts or hard freezes in our part of the state.

For those who aren’t big cool weather fans, hang tight. This week’s cool-down will be nothing more than just a memory by the upcoming weekend. High temperatures on Friday, Saturday and Sunday will return to the middle 80s (above average) and overnight numbers will only be dropping off into the upper 60s and low 70s (above average as well).