The Sunshine State lived up to its nickname during the summer season, with persistent heat and below-normal rainfall dominating the headlines.
While parts of the panhandle experienced periods of beneficial rainfall, much of the peninsula spent the summer running drier than normal in the rain gauge department.
The heat led to the state experiencing one of its top five warmest summers on record, but the warmth fell short of record years such as 1998 and 2024, when the median temperature was 3 °F above average.
During some of the hottest days of the summer, communities outside of Tallahassee reported air temperatures around 103 degrees, while Miami International Airport tied an all-time record high of 100 degrees - a temperature last experienced only on July 21, 1942.
Not everyone saw their hottest summer, with Pensacola seeing its 19th-warmest season, and Gainesville reporting its 18th-warmest summer on record.
But of course, it was all about the humidity with heat indices reaching between 110-120 degrees during the prolonged heat waves.
On the precipitation front, Titusville and the Space Coast reported its wettest summer, while Fort Lauderdale experienced its driest summer, with a rainfall deficit of nearly 15 inches.
Direct impacts from tropical activity didn’t help to cut down on the deficits of precipitation.
June, July and August passed without a named storm making a landfall in Florida.
Tropical Storm Bertha did form relatively close to the Florida Panhandle, but its impacts were limited as the cyclone moved westward toward the central Gulf.
Outlook for upcoming months
Much of the state's dry pattern can be tied to the transition from a La Niña to a El Niño, which officially took over in June.
El Niño typically alters weather patterns around the globe, and its influence can be important to help determine future precipitation.
Previous strong El Niño events have generally been associated with wetter winters across Florida, which raises the possibility that there could be drought relief into the new year, but there remains a significant unknown.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration gives the El Nino around a 70% chance of reaching historic strength during the October-December period.
If realized, it would leave forecasters with an unusual challenge heading into the 2026-27 winter, as there has never been an El Niño event on the scale of the current episode.
Without a previous similar-strength cycle, there are no exact analogs for forecasters to look back on for clues about what the upcoming winter could produce.
For now, Floridians should prepare for a warm fall with a mixed bag of precipitation values, as the Northern Hemisphere inches closer towards meteorological winter.
