JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — This blog is written & updated weekly by *me* - Mike Buresh.
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See & read updates every day at “Talking the Tropics With Mike”. We continue the streak of the latest to have a hurricane develop over the Atlantic Basin in the satellite era - since 1966. Only two years - since 1851 - are known to have not ever had at least one Atlantic hurricane - 1907 & 1914.
Speaking of the tropics... Fay finally dissipated Sept. 29th after first forming Sept. 20th then becoming an open wave on the 22nd only to re-develop the next day. During what’s been a quiet season for the Atlantic, Fay has been the longest lasting - albeit weak - tropical cyclone so far. Recall that storm names are decided years in advance & repeat every 6 years except for those names that are retired. Some may remember somewhat infamous Fay in (Aug.) 2008 which made 4(!) Florida landfalls (Keys, near Naples, near New Flagler Beach & then the Panhandle southeast of Panama City). The slow circuitous route resulted in more than a foot of rain across parts of the Peninsula along with tornadoes & waterspouts.
Kiddos missed several days of school while the storm impacted NE Fl./SE Ga. This pic includes two of my own in Duval:
We’ve reached the end of our wet season - June through September. And while we had some beneficial rain, the moisture was nowhere near what is needed to completely wipe out the long term drought. True to El Nino form, the summer was drier than average overall. Now we wait to see just how wet our late fall & winter might be - a usual byproduct of an El Nino across much of the south including NE Florida/SE Georgia.
Check out the very warm water temps. near the equatorial Pacific - the strong El Nino continues:
And speaking of El Nino... the phenomenon is possibly what has caused the very rare event - first ever in fact - of sea turtles laying eggs on the California coast in Orange County. The Olive Ridley sea turtles typically nest way to the south in Mexico & Central America. The eggs were recently harvested & moved to an aquarium due to expected wave action from hurricane Polo to the south of California.
In addition the El Nino is likely to blame for the siting of different shark species, rays, sea horses and the venomous yellow-bellied sea snake.
City of Huntington Beach photo:
We had a tease of autumn weather over the weekend of Sept. 26-27 that included a record tying low in Jacksonville of 55 degrees. As is typical this time of year, the cooler temps. didn’t last long & the high of 90 degrees on Mon., the 28th was the 108th 90-degree day (the average is 82 90-degree days) of the year tying Jacksonville for 4th on the all-time list for annual 90-degree days. The Saturday record low was the 15th record temp. of the year that’s included 6 record lows & 9 record highs.
We turn the calendars to October - only 3 months left in 2026!!... & we lose nearly another hour of daylight. Averages for JIA: