FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — South Florida will start to feel like South Florida again Tuesday, as the region emerges from its worst cold spell in more than a decade.
High temperatures for the metro area will hit the low 70s Tuesday, climb to the mid-70s by Wednesday and reach 80 degrees by Friday, according to the National Weather Service in Miami.
Nights will still be cool, but nothing like the weekend, when nighttime temperatures dipped into a range more characteristic of Cleveland than Miami. Nighttime lows this week will be in the 60s, certainly sweater weather, but an improvement over the temperatures in the 30s and 40s that prevailed across South Florida early Monday morning.
Monday’s low in Fort Lauderdale and Miami was an unseasonable 44 degrees, while temperatures in West Palm Beach fell to 41, according to the National Weather Service. Western Broward and Palm Beach counties experienced temperatures in the low 30s.
This was a change from the near-record lows in South Florida just a day before, when the low for Fort Lauderdale was 40 degrees, just 2 degrees above the record low of 38 degrees set in 1978, National Weather Service meteorologist Sammy Hadi said.
In West Palm Beach, the low dipped down to 37 degrees, just 2 degrees shy of the record low of 35 set in 1966. In Miami, the low reached 42 degrees, a far cry from the record low of 36 set in 1940.
Temperatures Sunday dipped into the 20s inland and into the 30s across the rest of the region.
Monday’s early morning lows, however, stayed in the 30s and 40s.
Belle Glade had a low of 36, while La Belle and Immokalee dipped below freezing with temperatures at 31 and 30, respectively. Everglades City plunged to a frigid 29 degrees.
As of 7 a.m., temperatures were in the low 30s across Glades, Hendry, interior Palm Beach, and interior Collier counties, the National Weather Service reported.
Frost conditions were possible into Monday morning for northwest Broward and almost all of Palm Beach County, excluding the coastal areas. That advisory expired at 8 a.m.
On Monday, South Floridians awoke to temperatures in the 40s. Forecasters had called for the possibility of a patchy frost through 8 a.m. The day should be otherwise sunny with highs of 65-73.
———
