Labor Day weekend is a chance to enjoy the remaining days of summer by grilling, lazing at the beach, visiting theme parks, or simply enjoying a day off from work.<\/p>\n
But if you plan to head outdoors in Central Florida, be prepared for afternoon showers Saturday through Monday that could spoil your fun.<\/p>\n
Temperatures each day are forecast to be a couple degrees above normal, with highs reaching 93 degrees and lows dropping to 75 degrees, according to the National Weather Service in Melbourne.<\/a><\/p>\n There\u2019s also a 70% chance of rain each day thanks in part to the remnants of Tropical Storm Dolly, which last month brought heavy rains to Puerto Rico and the Caribbean before fizzling out and moving northward in the Atlantic Ocean, according to the weather service.<\/p>\n Remnants of the storm have created unusually moist air over the Florida peninsula, along with energy in the atmosphere that helps create thunderstorms, said Melissa Watson, a meteorologist with the weather service.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re having sea breezes from the east and west that tend to come onshore and collide,\u201d creating the rainy weather in the center of the state, she said.<\/p>\n This has not been a typical summer when it comes to the weather.<\/p>\n Despite the rainy weather, the Central Florida region is exceptionally dry, including severe drought conditions in portions of Lake and west Orange counties, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor\u2019s Sept. 3 report.<\/a><\/p>\n In a normal year, the Orlando area receives about 37.4 inches of rain through August. But so far in 2026, the region has recorded 23.7 inches, a deficit of about 13.7 inches, for the same time period.<\/p>\n Although August was a rainy month \u2014 with 9.1 inches, or about 1.4 inches above normal \u2014 the first half of the year was abnormally dry, according to data from NWS.<\/p>\n The region also endured at least 48 days of temperatures soaring to at least 95 degrees<\/a> \u2014 and 29 days of 96 degrees or hotter \u2014 this summer, according to the weather service. Consider that the annual average is only about 37 days of the outdoor thermometer reaching 95 degrees or higher.<\/p>\n With the peak of hurricane season about to arrive on Sept. 10, the Atlantic has had only five tropical storms and yet no hurricanes, a relative rarity.<\/p>\n The lack of tropical storms has been mostly because of an intensifying El Ni\u00f1o in the eastern and central Pacific Ocean, near the equator, which creates warmer waters and increases the chances for more powerful storms in that region of the globe.<\/p>\n For example, Hurricane Lowell<\/a> near the Hawaiian islands was expected to become a major storm with more than 140 mph winds by late Saturday.<\/p>\n The El Ni\u00f1o in the Pacific in turn leads to sinking air and stronger upper level wind shear in the Atlantic, especially in the Caribbean. That tends to hinder the development of tropical storms.<\/p>\n According to the National Hurricane Center\u2019s website on Friday, tropical cyclone activity was not expected through Sept. 11.<\/p>\n The last times the Atlantic basin saw the first hurricanes in mid-September or later was in 2002 with Hurricane Gustav and 2013 with Hurricane Humberto, according to Philip Klotzbach, a meteorologist at Colorado State University<\/a>, who specializes in Atlantic basin seasonal hurricane forecasts.<\/p>\n Both of those hurricanes formed on Sept. 11.<\/p>\n