A compact but potent storm system delivered a widespread 4 to 8 inches of rain across the southern swath of the Sunshine State. As much as 10 to 14 inches fell just north of Miami as well as in parts of the northern Florida Keys.
The event reached its peak in much of southeastern Florida on Wednesday night as low pressure tracked across the southern tip of the state.
The rainfall was called “heavy to extreme” by the National Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Center in an overnight update. Rain fell at rates as high as 2 to 3 inches per hour.
Strong winds also brought down power lines and toppled trees, especially near the coast. Damage was particularly striking in parts of Miami and the nearby barrier-islands community of Miami Beach, where multiple locations recorded gusts near or above 70 mph, according to Weather Service data.
As a result of the winds, more than 110,000 electricity customers were without power Thursday morning, according to PowerOutage.us. Most outages were in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties along the southeastern coast of the state.
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Flooding and other storm-related problems also closed a number of schools in the area Thursday, including public schools in Broward County, home to Fort Lauderdale. To the south, Miami-Dade schools were open as normal.
The surge in rainfall rates and the subsequent flooding were the result of a compact but intense zone of convection associated with what is called a mesoscale low. The low-pressure area at the surface has been fed by a persistent bout of subtropical jet stream activity over the Gulf of Mexico and into the Caribbean over recent days.
Numerous locations flooded Wednesday and into Wednesday night. More than two dozen flood warnings and advisories were issued by the Weather Service in the region, according to data from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet.
High water was reported throughout the dense metropolitan area, including in Miami and Fort Lauderdale.
Despite the cessation of heavy rainfall by sunrise Thursday, floodwaters remained high in some spots across the region, including at a shopping center that was reported underwater in the North Miami area.
The flooding was the result of a widespread 4 to 8 inches of rain, with some locations picking up more than 10 inches in one day and around 14 inches over two days.
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Among the big totals Wednesday alone were these calendar day records:
Share this articleShare- Miami: 7.53 inches, beating 3.41 inches in 1994.
- Naples: 3.28 inches, beating 0.36 inches in 2018.
- Fort Myers: 1.72 inches, beating 1.33 inches in 1994.
- Key West: 1.07 inches, tying the same in 1980.
Miami’s total on Wednesday also was the most recorded in one day there since May 2012, and the fourth-wettest day in November back to the 1880s, according to Weather Channel senior meteorologist Jonathan Erdman.
Fort Lauderdale, while still lacking some official reporting of rain from this event, has surpassed 100 inches this year through Tuesday’s record rainfall. With 4 to 8 inches Wednesday night in the area, 2023 has become the wettest year on record there, and one of two years since 1913 that have topped the century mark for an annual rainfall tally. The prior high mark was 102.36 inches in 1947.
Accumulating 24-hour rainfall across south #FLwx. Impressive amounts! Add several more inches to this to get 2-day totals. High resolution ensemble forecasts, while not perfect, were damn good at advertising the excessive rainfall amounts. @NWSWPC MDT risk was also a good call. pic.twitter.com/HPRWLf6zu1
— Greg Carbin ☮️ (@GCarbin) November 16, 2023Even with the huge surplus of rainfall this year in a place like Fort Lauderdale, much of Florida’s west coast has been experiencing drought. In some of these regions, the rainfall was greatly needed, even if what fell was generally lower than the precipitation in and around the Miami region.
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In addition to the rain, winds were strong enough to cause scattered to locally numerous reports of damage across the region, with a particular focus on the Jupiter to Homestead stretch, where high-wind warnings were in effect through midday Thursday for the risk of gusts above 60 mph.
Among dozens of reports of either strong gusts or damage, some peak values include:
- Key Largo: 86 mph gust in the northernmost Keys
- Miami Beach: 75 mph gust just east of downtown
- Fort Myers: 59 mph gust at the international airport
- Juno Beach: 59 mph gust north of West Palm Beach
- St. Lucie: 55 mph gust south of Vero Beach
Many other gusts of around 50 mph or a bit higher also were recorded. With strong winds continuing, conditions are slated to improve with time Thursday.
The hardest-hit spots thus far should receive comparatively little additional rainfall. Some heavier activity could set up farther north around the Space Coast later Thursday. An additional 2 to 4 inches is possible from about Vero Beach to Daytona, with some places perhaps topping half a foot, requiring a warning of Level 2 of 4 slight risk of excessive rainfall for the zone.
Most of the heaviest rain should move east of the Florida Peninsula by Friday morning.
Although a chance for drying out is ahead in the short term, the outlooks from the Climate Prediction Center favor above-average rainfall in the weeks and months to come. El Niño winters, like the one getting underway, tend to be stormy in the region.
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