Orlando Seasonal Weather Patterns, Season by Season

Summer is the only Orlando season that averages more than 20 inches of rain, 23.20 at Orlando International Airport, while winter averages 7.00 inches and the normal high runs from 73.5 degrees in winter to 91.5 in summer (NWS Melbourne August summary; February summary).

Every normal in this guide is for Orlando International Airport, station USW00012815, which NOAA ACIS lists as ORLANDO INTL AP (NOAA ACIS normals), not a thermometer downtown; the 1991 to 2020 monthly normals printed on the NWS Melbourne ORLANDO sheets match the ACIS normals for that station. NWS Melbourne prints a block of season figures on the last month of each Orlando season: winter on the February sheet, spring on May, summer on August and fall on November. Its record tables are labeled ORLANDO without naming the airport and run from January 1, 1892, so the season and monthly records below are the NWS Melbourne Orlando record, while the yearly and 2026 counts are airport readings from ACIS (NWS Melbourne November summary).

Added together, the four Orlando season normals come to 51.45 inches, and summer alone supplies about 45 percent of that. Energy use follows the same lopsided calendar: the Orlando summer normal is 1,579 cooling degree days (NWS Melbourne), while the whole Orlando winter carries only 412 heating degree days (NWS Melbourne), so in degree days the cooling demand of an Orlando summer is nearly four times the heating demand of an Orlando winter.

Summer is the wettest Orlando season by the airport normals, and NWS Melbourne says the collision of the east and west coast sea breezes over the peninsula causes Florida's high lightning flash rates in June and the rest of summer (NWS Melbourne lightning climatology).

The switch is abrupt at Orlando International Airport. Normal rain climbs from 4.02 inches in May to 8.05 in June (NOAA ACIS normals), and the NWS Melbourne study of records since 1950 puts the median start of the Orlando wet season at May 27, a few days after Stuart on May 23 and before Daytona Beach on May 30 (NWS Melbourne wet and dry seasons). A median date means half of the Orlando years started earlier and half later.

NWS Melbourne calls July the month for lightning in Florida, with warm coastal water and near maximum sunshine letting both sea breezes develop fully; August keeps the same general pattern with a slight decrease in activity, as insolation decreases and the subtropical ridge builds over the state (NWS Melbourne). On that statewide lightning record, the peak comes in July rather than at the start of June.

Heat is steady rather than extreme in an Orlando summer. The airport logged 144 days at or above 90 degrees in 2022, 142 in 2024 and 125 in 2025, but reached 100 degrees on only one day in 2015 and one day in 2023 between 2010 and 2025 (NOAA ACIS yearly counts). The hottest August days in the Orlando record are 101 degrees, set on August 1, 1922 among others (NWS Melbourne August summary). Summer rain varies far more than heat: the wettest Orlando summer brought 34.19 inches in 2002 and the driest only 12.35 in 1895 (NWS Melbourne).

Fall reaches Orlando in two steps: the dry season begins on a median date of Oct. 15 and the first reading below 60 degrees follows on a median October 19, in NWS Melbourne figures for records since 1950 (NWS Melbourne wet and dry seasons).

September stays summer-like at Orlando International Airport, with a normal high of 89.6 degrees and 6.37 inches of rain, and the wettest Orlando September on record brought 22.42 inches in 2022 (NWS Melbourne September summary). The Orlando historical storm impacts guide covers the 2022 storm season. Across the whole fall, September to November, the airport normal is a high of 84.2, a low of 65.6 and 11.62 inches of rain, and fall 2022 holds the season record at 28.83 inches (NWS Melbourne November summary).

By November the Orlando pattern has flipped. The November normal is just 1.79 inches, the lowest monthly normal of the year at the airport (NOAA ACIS normals), and the airport's November 2025 total of 0.07 inches ranks as the third driest November in the NWS Melbourne Orlando record since 1892, behind 0.03 in 1967 and 0.06 in 2016 (NWS Melbourne). The first Orlando reading below 50 degrees arrives on a median November 5 (NWS Melbourne).

An Orlando winter is mild on average, with a normal high of 73.5 and low of 51.6 degrees from December to February, yet the airport still logged five freezing nights in January and February 2026 (NWS Melbourne February summary; NOAA ACIS daily data).

The 2026 cold came in a cluster. Orlando International Airport fell to 32 on January 16, 31 on January 31, 24 on February 1, 28 on February 2 and 30 on February 3, 2026 (NOAA ACIS daily data). The NWS Melbourne February sheet now lists 24 degrees as the record low for February 1 and 46 as the record low maximum for that date, both from 2026, and 28 degrees as the record low for February 2, 2026 (NWS Melbourne). Winter storms over Florida follow a different engine from summer ones: NWS Melbourne notes that the little lightning of January is governed largely by the passage of mid-latitude systems such as consecutively active cold fronts (NWS Melbourne lightning climatology).

The table shows why a freeze surprises Orlando residents: the airport went three straight calendar years, 2023 through 2025, without a single night at 32 or below, and the five nights of early 2026 were the most since the 13 of 2010 (NOAA ACIS yearly counts). Orlando winter records span a wide range, from the coolest winter at a 54.8 degree average in 1958 to the warmest at 68.1 in 1932, and from 0.17 inches of rain in 1907 to 23.36 inches in 1998 (NWS Melbourne).

Spring in Orlando, March through May, averages 9.63 inches of rain at the airport, and more than 40 percent of it, 4.02 inches, normally falls in May as storms return ahead of the late May wet season (NWS Melbourne May summary).

April is the quiet month of an Orlando spring, with a normal of 2.58 inches, and April 1896 recorded no rain at all (NWS Melbourne April summary). Official sources differ on which month is driest. The NWS Melbourne lightning page says the month of April is the driest month of the year for Florida (NWS Melbourne), but at the Orlando station the lowest monthly normal belongs to November at 1.79 inches (NOAA ACIS normals). The lightning page gives no rainfall figures behind its statement, so the two are reported here as each source states them.

Spring is also when Orlando heats up fastest. The May normal high is 88.4 degrees, the warmest Orlando spring averaged 76.6 in 2015, and spring 2026 ranks fourth warmest at 75.7 (NWS Melbourne). Spring 2025 showed how fast the season can swing: the airport had 0.79 inches in March and 0.37 in April (NOAA ACIS monthly data), then 13.18 inches in May, the second wettest May in the Orlando record behind 14.56 in 2009 (NWS Melbourne).

Summer 2026 was the second warmest summer in the Orlando record, averaging 84.5 degrees from June through August behind only 84.9 in 1903, while rain at Orlando International Airport fell well short of normal (NWS Melbourne August summary; NOAA ACIS).

July 2026 averaged 85.2 degrees, tied with 2016 for second warmest July on the NWS Melbourne Orlando list, and its 3.58 inches tied 1932 for seventh driest July (NWS Melbourne July summary). August 2026 ranks seventh warmest at 84.6 (NWS Melbourne).

Only August 2026 beat its Orlando normal, so the three summer months together came to less than 17 inches against the 23.20 inch summer normal, and September added 2.57 inches where 6.37 is normal (NOAA ACIS monthly data; NOAA ACIS normals).

The coming Orlando dry season may not stay dry. NWS Melbourne issued its 2026 to 2027 Central Florida Dry Season Outlook on September 30, 2026 for November 1, 2026 through April 30, 2027, and headlines an increased potential for well above normal rainfall and severe weather; the outlook rests on NWS Melbourne research into the El Nino Southern Oscillation (NWS Melbourne dry season outlook). The outlook covers Florida climate divisions 3 and 4 in two periods, November to January and February to April, and the next issue is due in January 2027.

Last verified: October 18, 2026, by re-reading the NWS Melbourne ORLANDO monthly summaries for February, April, May, July, August, September and November, the NWS Melbourne season onset and dry season outlook pages, and the NOAA ACIS records for Orlando International Airport.