JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The rainy season is over! If you have been looking to get a new roof or repaint the house, the next few months are some of the driest across northeast Florida.
Temperatures don’t always follow the seasonal pattern, but the abrupt end to our rainy season usually does.
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The start of Jacksonville’s rainy season begins on average June 3, according to data from the Climate Prediction Center, and ends roughly 281 days into the year on Oct. 8.
September is the wettest month where average rainfall equals .31″ per day. The boost comes from the frequency of tropical cyclones targeting the area during the height of the Atlantic hurricane season. November is the driest month, typically receiving just over 2 inches of rain.
It rains on average 114 days out of the year in Jacksonville. Our area sees seven more days of rain compared to Tampa due to more frequent frontal systems. However, Miami is wetter with 133 rainy days based on records from the Southeast Regional Climate Center.
The start and ending dates are changing.
There seems to be a pattern where the rainy season starts later and ends earlier, not just in Jacksonville but also for other major urban areas including Tampa, Orlando and Miami.
Researchers say development may be causing the shift in the rain pattern along with heavier rain.
Florida’s high growth rate has seen the population expand at 20–80% per decade during the 20th century which has converted land cover from forest and grass lands to residential, commercial, and industrial purposes.
Despite the shortening of the seasonal length of the wet season in the urban regions the amount of rain falling is not decreasing as much, thereby causing the average daily rain rate to increase.
More water vapor gasses in the atmosphere from rising global temperatures increases extreme precipitation events in the southeastern United States.