South Florida cooling down to the 50s? It’ll be the first time in months

For the first time in about seven months, South Florida will see some of the coolest overnight lows — with the temps reaching the upper 50s.

Temperatures haven’t dropped this low since mid-March, and we’ll see them drop to the 50s Monday night into early Tuesday. The nicer weather also will last through Tuesday, too, with temperatures not peaking above the 80s. (It’ll be a reprieve from the summer, which had us facing feels-like temperatures exceeding 100 degrees.)

“It’ll be a very nice kind of fall day for us,” said Ana Porres-Vazquez, a forecaster with the National Weather Service.

The cooler weather is a result of a cold front that has swept through the state, according to the National Weather Service.

“This cold front that just came through and the push of cold air behind it was one of the stronger fronts that we’ve had thus far this year across the whole nation,” Porres-Vazquez said. “This very large mass of cold air coming down from the Arctic all the way from Canada through the contiguous United States has pushed through to our area.”

The cooldown will be short-lived, she said.

“Unfortunately, or fortunately for some, depending on people’s tolerance to temperature, there’s going to be a gradual warming up after this,” she said.

On Wednesday, the high will be in the mid-80s, and on Thursday, temperatures will rise back up to the upper-80s during the day, she said, with nighttime temperatures hovering around the low-70s and upper-60s.

“It won’t be, you know, sweltering summer heat, we’re not going back to that,” she said. “But the cold snap, so to speak, won’t last long.”

Porres-Vazquez said South Florida has entered its dry season for the year, but residents will have to wait until mid-December for more long-lasting cooldowns. The region will start to see lower temperatures overall rather than just a dependence on cold fronts, she said.

“It takes a really, really strong kind of cold front and very, very cold air mask coming down south enough for temperatures to really, really drop into those 47-, 48-degree ranges,” she said. “It’s rare, but we could potentially see temperatures dropping into the upper 50s, 60s more likely once we get into that January period.”

And even though the air feels more brisk, temperatures in the Atlantic and the Gulf likely won’t have enough time to catch up and also experience a dip in temperatures.

With a potential tropical depression brewing in the Atlantic, Porres-Vazquez said storm development is still possible.

So soak in the couple of cold-ish days while you can — they’ll be gone almost as soon as they arrived.