Daytona Beach, FL – Cooler weather will mark the start of 2016 in Daytona Beach as 2015 comes to an end as the warmest year on record for the area.
The National Weather Service’s Melbourne office says 2015 is also the warmest on record for the 3 other Central Florida locations they monitor regularly. Those include Melbourne, Orlando and Vero Beach.
Daytona Beach’s average temperature for 2015 was 73.7 degrees, beating the old record of 73.1 set in 1990. That’s nearly 3 degrees higher than the 30-year average of 70.9 degrees.
NWS Meteorologist Will Ulrich says that temperatures stayed above average pretty much all year in 2015 except for in February.
He also noted that last month ended as the 2nd warmest December on record thanks largely to what’s known as the “Bermuda High”, a high-pressure system that sat off the coast and pushed cold fronts away from Florida.
December 2015’s average temperature came in at 70.6 degrees, over 10 degrees warmer than the normal average of 60.5 degrees. Only the 70.9 posted in December 1931 was warmer, according to NWS records.
There were 7 different days in December where the record high temperature was snapped, most of those being in the low to mid-80’s.
November 2015 was also the warmest ever on record, part of a fall season that was also the warmest ever for the Daytona Beach area.
It’s about to feel more like winter to start the New Year, however. The New Year’s Day high temperature will hover around 80 degrees before a front moving in will bring anywhere between 20% to 70% chance of rain until Thursday. Temperatures should drop to around the mid to high 60’s.
NWS still expects a cooler and wetter winter than normal due largely to the El Nino effect.
Graphics below are courtesy of the NWS Melbourne Twitter account.
Copyright 2015 Southern Stone Communications.