Current Conditions in Navarre

Thursday, December 1, 2011

The Climate of Navarre

Navarre's geographic location in the Southeastern United States falls under the Koppen-Geiger scale as a humid subtropical climate. The specific classification for the region is Cfa, which means warm temperate, fully humid, and hot summers.

Looking at Navarre's climate from a meso-scale two trends occur. First is its proximity to the Gulf of Mexico which constantly brings in humid air into the region from the warm water surface temperatures, especially in the summer. This saturated air spawns afternoon thunderstorms throughout the summer all along the Florida coast. Navarre receives just over 60 inches of precipitation every year, with the majority of the rain falling in July with an average of almost 8 inches, and April is the driest with about 4 inches of precipitation.
Typical summertime thunderstorm over the Intracoastal Waterway in Navarre (http://www.rustypants.net/)

The next regional climate trend that exists in the area falls under the category of secondary atmospheric circulation patterns, and that is the threat of Hurricanes. Eight major hurricanes have made land fall close to Navarre in the last 40 years. In the last decade two hurricanes have hit in the region. Navarre was struck by a category 3 storm, Hurricane Ivan, on the eastern side of the eye wall . It brought strong winds and storm surge leveling many buildings and structures throughout the area in 2004.

The 3,000 mile path of Hurricane Ivan in September 2004 (National Hurricane Center 2005).

After Hurricane Ivan made landfall in neighboring Pensacola, FL (http://neorepublica.com/index.php).

Looking at previous weather data for my location back to 2006, the climate trends have little variance. However I did notice that the summertime temperatures were a few degrees warmer now than the average summertime temperatures in the past.

KFLNAVAR7 Weather Graph

KFLNAVAR7 Weather Graph

*Sources: NOAA, National Hurricane Center, Pensacola News Journal

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