Rejoice! Cold front brings coolest weather in 7 months to Fort Myers, Naples, Cape Coral

It's been nearly seven months since the Fort Myers-Naples area experienced lows in the 50s.

That changed this week as a strong frontal boundary moved over the Sunshine State Sunday, bringing a mass of cooler, drier air.

"We had a cold front that moved through Sunday and it's filtering in cooler and drier air," said Nicole Carlisle, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Ruskin. "We'll see that for a couple of days and then we'll warm back up for the rest of the week."

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Temperatures fell to 57 degrees Monday morning, but temperatures will be even cooler Tuesday morning, when lows will be closer to 54 degrees.

The record low for an Oct. 17 in Fort Myers is 51 degrees, Carlisle said.

"It's on the cooler side, but it's what happens when we get into late October and November," she said. "We get these fronts that will cool us down a little and then it will warm back up a little."

Fort Myers, Naples temps haven't been in the 50s for nearly seven months

This area hasn't seen lows in the 50s since March 22, Carlisle said.

Similar conditions are expected in Naples, although cooler temperatures will likely be found in inland towns in eastern Collier County.

"We've got really one more day of cooler weather before we start to warm back up later this week," said Chris Fisher, a meteorologist with NWS in Miami. "Naples is looking at lows in the upper 50s but if you look at Immokalee and Ave Maria, they'll see temperatures in the low 50s. The water temperatures (in the Gulf of Mexico) impact that, so you'll stay warmer at the coast."

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Fisher said this front is a little on the strong side for this time of year but that it's nothing abnormal.

"This is our first decent cold front of the season," Fisher said.

Will El Nino impact winter?

Various weather outlets are calling for El Nino conditions to impact Florida this year.

For Southwest Florida, El Nino typically brings more severe weather as the jet stream is closer to the Sunshine State.

"This front is not specifically related, but in an El Nino winter we typically get a lot more fronts that come through because the southern jet stream is a lot more active here," Fisher said.

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Carlisle said the severe weather experienced here last week is much more of an indicator of El Nino.

"The storm system we had last week with the tornadoes is a pretty typical situation for El Nino," Carlisle said. "It's here, so that's kind of the examples of impact from it."

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This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: Florida cold front to bring coolest temperatures since March