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A Year in Review: The Many Southwest Florida Weather Events of 2023

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Weather
Credit: Gulfshore Life

As 2023 wraps up, The Weather Authority wants to take a stroll down memory lane with the many weather highlights of the year.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, January of 2023 was the sixth-hottest January on record in the U.S. The average temperature across the contiguous U.S. was 35.2F, which was 5.1 degrees higher than the average.

The summer of 2023 was the hottest on record for many cities across Florida, according to the National Weather Service.

El Niño was ever-present throughout the year as we experienced nauseating heat waves during the summer months.

According to Phys.org, El Niño will continue into next spring as we approach La Niña during the Summer of 2024. La Niña is expected to bring droughts in some areas which combined with global warming, can become extremely intense in places like the Southeastern U.S. and South America.

The Weather Authority meteorologist Lauren Kreidler says, “a historically strong El Niño pattern is expected to continue throughout the rest of the winter months.”

The Climate Prediction Center notes that “an event of this strength would potentially be in the top 5 of El Niño events since 1950.”

According to NOAA, Florida has suffered 81 different billion-dollar disaster events since the organization began keeping these records in 1980, making the total costs over $380 billion.

Those events include 32 tropical cyclones, 26 severe storms, five freezes, four wildfires, seven droughts, two floodings and five winter storms.

Florida was affected by five severe weather disasters and one hurricane, costing roughly a billion dollars or more.

disaster
A map of the U.S. plotted with 23 weather and climate disasters each costing $1 billion or more that occurred between January and August, 2023. (Image credit: NOAA/NCEI)

Of course, who can forget about Hurricane Idalia? Thankfully, Idalia was not as severe for our area compared to Hurricane Ian in 2022; however, many experienced some dangerous aftermath following the late August storm.

Southwest Florida was treated to a late-year severe weather alert. Flooding and tornado warnings were issued throughout the weekend of Dec. 16 and 17. In some isolated areas, around 3ft of storm surge was reported. Many people who woke up on the following Sunday were greeted with street and garage flooding.

If you have any weather-related photos you’d like to share, share them with WINK News or send them over to Lauren Kreidler’s Facebook.

Feel like we forgot anything? Let us know through the WINK News tips page.

WINK News wishes everyone a safe and happy New Year!

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