Florida Shattered Rain Records This Week. Was That Just a Preview?

On the Florida peninsula, this time of year is typically pretty dry. The hurricane season is winding down, and the warm, tropical atmospheric conditions that can bring daily downpours throughout the summer are moving on, replaced by lower humidity and far less rain during the late fall and winter. But this is not a typical year. This week, relentless rain caused by a series of storms between Sunday and Tuesday led to flooding that inundated homes, submerged roads and left some neighborhoods inaccessible.

Federal officials said the weather on Sunday was “certainly a factor” in the Learjet crash that left nine people dead outside Palm Beach. The National Weather Service gauge in the city of Melbourne, southeast of Orlando, records an average of about two and a half inches of rain in November. On Monday alone, the site measured 11.51 inches, recording its highest amount in a single day, surpassing the 10.23 inches that fell during Hurricane Irma on Sept. 10, 2017.

What’s more, three days into the month, the site had already recorded its wettest November ever, with 13.69 inches of rain, eclipsing the 9.72 inches set in November 1963. Elsewhere in Brevard County, including the town of Malabar, some gauges recorded more than two feet of rain this week. Meteorologists said that the unusually heavy rain was a prelude to the stormy weather that is expected this winter because of El Niño, a climate pattern that scrambles weather worldwide.

In Florida, that scrambling will probably make this winter a very damp one, experts said. We are having trouble retrieving the article content. Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. Already a subscriber? Log in . Want all of The Times?

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