Yeah. <\/p>\n
You read right. <\/p>\n
No, I\u2019m not just here talking tropics for the sake of taking us out of the cold weather warnings getting ready to pop off across Central Florida. <\/p>\n
Well, maybe I am. But there is, in fact, a feature that\u2019s got a number of us tropical weather forecasters very intrigued. It\u2019s off the southwest shores of Baja California, and actually has a pretty substantial model agreement that this could spin up into a very early 2026 tropical low-pressure system. <\/p>\n
I also add – this is a beautiful example of how weather across the globe is actually all tied together. The same mechanism helping instigate some tropical-style thunderstorms in the eastern Pacific is what\u2019s helping reinforce the freezing weather we\u2019re battling with in Florida. <\/p>\n
That’s an odd sight to see this time of year. Very rare but not impossible (Copyright 2026 by WKMG ClickOrlando – All rights reserved.)<\/p>\n
An area of disorganized showers and storms is more or less stationary due south of the Baja California peninsula. It looks pretty disheveled on satellite imagery, but there is the presence of a circulation beneath all the ragged cloud cover. <\/p>\n
Over the next day or two, conditions are actually forecast to improve for more gradual development before the same trough helping instigate the tropical action helps it lift towards the north. <\/p>\n
Some residual impacts could be felt in Baja California and even portions of the desert Southwest as moisture is pulled northward by the jet stream. <\/p>\n
How cool is that?! A potential tropical feature in the month of January. While not commonplace without a doubt, it certainly is doable. Especially when you glance at the water temperatures still holding on from the shores of Mexico extending to about 120W longitude. <\/p>\n
You only need about 78-80 degree surface temps for at least slow tropical formation. In this case, our little feature is going to meander over temps at around 80-84 degrees in some isolated spots. <\/p>\n
Gusts forecast to exceed 40 and even isolated bouts of 50mph would technically classify this as a tropical storm if it were to verify (Copyright 2026 by WKMG ClickOrlando – All rights reserved.)<\/p>\n
When is the last time something like this took place? <\/p>\n
While not a guaranteed named system, the environment and dynamics are in place. The last time this occurred was in January of 2016, when Hurricane Pali actually formed via the same driving forces we\u2019re describing here.<\/p>\n
A persistent trough in the upper levels fed some very ugly-looking thunderstorms over open water until low pressure blossomed. From there, it lifted northward and managed to intensify into a category two hurricane. Very impressive given we\u2019re in the heart of the northern hemisphere winter! <\/p>\n
I\u2019m not exactly expecting any kind of hurricane to form, and it\u2019s nowhere near a slam-dunk formation forecast. But it is a neat tidbit to see all of our reputable computer models latching on to this potential idea. <\/p>\n
It will also influence our weather once it gets absorbed back into the pattern after lifting out of the tropical Pacific. <\/p>\n
Not only does the spin of this feature become entangled with the remainder of our jet stream, but it also helps swing some moisture towards us mid to late next week, after the secondary cold blast we feel right here in town. <\/p>\n
These little waves of energy that get roped into the main branch of the jet stream over the United States absolutely play their role in agitating the weather a little more than normal. <\/p>\n
If you remember when our first huge bout of cold weather arrived a couple months ago, it was a response to extensive typhoon activity in the western Pacific. It had implications for our weather across the planet! <\/p>\n
We\u2019re definitely off to a very interesting start to the 2026 calendar year with something tropical trying to manifest itself, alongside an abnormally strong cold plunge coming our way. <\/p>\n
Daily Forecast<\/p>\n
The News 6 Weather team ensures you’re always on top of the day’s weather.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 by WKMG ClickOrlando – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Yeah. You read right. No, I\u2019m not just here talking tropics for the sake of taking us out…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":409416,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4,450,11315,164069,196651,451,3,60376,452,453,53576,60693,148929],"class_list":["post-409415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-forecast","tag-freezing","tag-freezing-temperatures","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-snow","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories","tag-tropical-storm","tag-tropics","tag-winter-storm"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=409415"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409415\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/409416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=409415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=409415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=409415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}