Cold Front To Plunge Temperatures In Tampa Bay For Halloween

TAMPA BAY, FL — Trick-or-treaters should brace themselves for chillier weather on Halloween.

Ahead of the holiday, a cold front will bring a temperature drop to much of Florida starting late Wednesday, forecasters said.

The front blows in with “breezy northwest winds ushering in the coolest air we’ve seen this autumn,” the National Weather Service in Tampa Bay posted to X.

The high temperatures throughout the Tampa Bay region on Friday could be anywhere from 70 to 77 degrees, while the lows will have an even wider range of 43 to 60 degrees, with the coolest weather further north, NWS said in its five-day forecast on Wednesday.

The typical high for Central Florida at this time of year is 81 degrees, News 6 said. “So this will be a real taste of fall!”

“Friday for Halloween will be gorgeous with a high in the low 70s (this will be the coolest since 2012 when Hurricane Sandy helped pull cool air down into Florida,)” Bay News 9 meteorologist Brian McClure wrote in a social media post.

Halloween is also forecast to be “sunny and pleasant” with a near-zero percent chance of rain, the NWS said.

This pending cold front, originating in Canada, comes on the heels of another, weaker cold front, which moved into Florida on Monday and kept Hurricane Melissa east of the state, according to the Tampa Bay Times.

The weather drop also likely signifies a change in the weather pattern for Florida and an end to the state’s rainy season, Austen Flannery with NWS told the Times.

“Typically when you get a good system like this to come through, that really tends to signify a pretty good pattern shift when it comes to the frequency of daily showers and storms,” he said.

Here’s the five-day forecast for the Tampa area from NWS:

• Wednesday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 80. Light and variable wind becoming west southwest around 6 mph in the afternoon.
• Wednesday Night: A 20 percent chance of showers before 11 p.m. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 63. Southwest wind 6 to 8 mph becoming west northwest after midnight.
• Thursday: A slight chance of sprinkles before 11 a.m., then a slight chance of showers between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m., then a slight chance of sprinkles after 2 p.m. Mostly sunny, with a high near 74. West northwest wind 7 to 14 mph, with gusts as high as 21 mph. Chance of precipitation is 20 percent.
• Thursday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 55. North wind 5 to 8 mph.
• Halloween: Sunny, with a high near 73. North wind around 7 mph.
• Halloween Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 52. North northwest wind around 5 mph becoming calm in the evening.
• Saturday: Sunny, with a high near 76. Calm wind becoming east northeast around 5 mph in the afternoon.
• Saturday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 56. Northeast wind 3 to 5 mph.
• Sunday: Sunny, with a high near 81. East wind 5 to 7 mph.
• Sunday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 61.
• Monday: A 20 percent chance of showers. Sunny, with a high near 81.
• Monday Night: A 10 percent chance of showers. Partly cloudy, with a low around 62.