Weather in Miami — Miami, Florida

Miami occupies the southeastern tip of the Florida peninsula at approximately 25.8°N latitude, placing it in a tropical monsoon climate classification — one of only two major U.S. cities designated as such. The city's weather is organized around a sharply defined wet season running from May through October and a drier, milder season from November through April. The National Weather Service Miami Weather Forecast Office (WFO MFL) has maintained the official climate record for Miami since 1895, establishing the longest continuous meteorological record in South Florida.

The 1991–2020 Climate Normals — the current official reference period published by NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) — set Miami International Airport's mean annual temperature at approximately 77–78°F, as documented by NWS Miami and the University of Miami's Miami International Airport Climatological Data Portal. Mean annual rainfall stands at approximately 62 inches, with the overwhelming majority concentrated in the wet season months. The city experiences roughly 80 thunderstorm days per year, one of the highest frequencies recorded for any major U.S. city, driven by the convergence of Atlantic and Gulf sea breezes across the low-lying peninsula.

Under the 1991–2020 Climate Normals, January represents the coolest month in Miami's calendar. The NWS Miami Daily Climatological Report for January 7, 2026 confirms the normal January maximum at 76°F and the normal January minimum at 61°F. By contrast, the NWS Miami Daily Climatological Report for May 4, 2026 places the normal May maximum at 86°F, with summer highs in the upper 80s to near 90°F routine across June through September. The dry season from roughly November through April is characterized by continental cold fronts that periodically displace the persistent tropical moisture, yielding the mild, lower-humidity conditions documented in NWS Miami climate records.

The wet season pattern from May through October is dominated by Atlantic moisture, sea-breeze convergence, and tropical systems. NWS Miami documents the wet season as producing intense but typically short-duration convective storms on summer afternoons, accounting for the majority of the city's approximately 62-inch mean annual rainfall total. The NWS Miami Local Climate Information page provides climate graphs and products reflecting these seasonal dynamics across the WFO MFL area of responsibility.

The National Weather Service Miami Weather Forecast Office (WFO MFL), located at 11691 SW 17th Street, Miami, FL 33165 (telephone 305-229-4522), is the federal agency responsible for official weather forecasts, climate records, and hazard warnings across South Florida. Its area of responsibility encompasses Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach counties, the Florida Keys, and adjacent Atlantic and Gulf coastal marine zones. The office issues tropical storm and hurricane watches and warnings for the region in coordination with the National Hurricane Center (NHC), which is also headquartered in Miami-Dade County.

Miami International Airport serves as the official climate observation point for the city. The University of Miami's Climatological Data Portal, maintained by researcher Brian McNoldy and operated in coordination with NWS Miami, provides granular daily and monthly climate data for the airport station extending back to 1933. This portal documents 1991–2020 averages alongside daily observations, offering a research-grade complement to official NWS climate products. The NWS Miami Local Climate Information page consolidates the office's full suite of climate products, including climate graphs and archived climatological reports for the South Florida region.

NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) serves as the national repository for the U.S. Climate Normals dataset, which NWS Miami draws on for its official reference period statistics. The 1991–2020 normals were published by NCEI in 2021, replacing the prior 1981–2010 normals as the operational baseline for forecast comparisons and climate summaries.

Miami's hurricane history is among the most extensively documented of any U.S. city. The Great Miami Hurricane of September 18, 1926 — a Category 4 storm that made landfall near Miami Beach — is recorded in NOAA's Historical Hurricane Tracks database and NWS Miami historical records as one of the most destructive Atlantic hurricanes of the 20th century; its impacts collapsed the Florida real-estate boom of the 1920s. Nine years later, on Labor Day 1935, the most intense Atlantic hurricane to make U.S. landfall on record struck the Florida Keys, located immediately south of Miami-Dade County, further embedding hurricane preparedness in the region's civic consciousness.

The mid-20th century brought additional major landfalls affecting South Florida, including Hurricane Donna in 1960 and Hurricane Betsy in 1965, both documented by the National Hurricane Center. Hurricane Andrew on August 24, 1992 — a Category 5 storm at landfall — devastated Homestead, located south of Miami within Miami-Dade County, causing more than $27 billion in damages in 1992 dollars. The National Hurricane Center documents Andrew as the costliest U.S. hurricane on record at the time of its occurrence; its aftermath directly drove major revisions to Florida's statewide building codes.

More recently, Hurricane Irma made landfall in the Florida Keys on September 10, 2017 as a Category 4 storm before tracking through Miami-Dade County as a tropical storm. NWS Miami documented Irma as producing one of the highest storm-surge events in modern South Florida records outside of the Andrew landfall zone, with widespread flooding and power outages across the county. The office's tropical forecasting responsibilities — maintained jointly with the National Hurricane Center — reflect the region's persistent exposure to Atlantic tropical systems throughout the June–November hurricane season.

The most recent available NWS Miami daily climate summary, issued for May 4, 2026, recorded a maximum temperature of 82°F against the 1991–2020 normal of 86°F, and a minimum of 71°F against the normal of 72°F, per the NWS Miami Daily Climatological Report for that date. Year-to-date precipitation through May 4, 2026 stood at 10.36 inches, compared to the normal of 10.30 inches — essentially on-pace with the climatological average as the wet season approached its onset.

At the decadal scale, the transition from the 1981–2010 normals to the current 1991–2020 normals marked a measurable shift in South Florida's baseline climate. The NWS Miami Climate Normals 1991–2020 Analysis found that average annual temperatures increased at South Florida stations during the new normals period compared to the prior period, with the increase driven primarily by rising minimum — that is, overnight — temperatures rather than daytime highs. This pattern of warming nighttime lows is consistent with the broader signal documented by NCEI for the southeastern United States in the 1991–2020 normals dataset.

Miami's weather patterns are shaped in large part by its physical setting. The city sits atop the Atlantic Coastal Ridge, a narrow limestone formation averaging only 10 to 12 feet above sea level; most of metropolitan Miami-Dade lies at or below 6 feet in elevation. The underlying geology — porous oolitic limestone bedrock — makes the region highly susceptible to both storm surge infiltration and groundwater rise during heavy rainfall events, a compounding factor that NWS Miami accounts for in its storm surge and flood guidance products.

The Atlantic Ocean and Biscayne Bay to the east and the Everglades to the west create the sea-breeze convergence mechanism that NWS Miami identifies as the primary driver of Miami's extraordinary thunderstorm frequency. When Atlantic and Gulf sea breezes collide over the low-lying peninsula on summer afternoons, convective development is rapid and intense. This same proximity to open water moderates temperature extremes: sustained cold spells or prolonged heat waves of the kind experienced at inland Florida cities are comparatively rare in Miami proper, as documented in the 1991–2020 normals analysis.

WFO MFL's jurisdiction extends well beyond Miami's city limits, covering Broward County to the north and Palm Beach County farther north, as well as the Florida Keys to the south and adjacent Atlantic and Gulf marine waters. For tropical systems, NWS Miami coordinates directly with the National Hurricane Center, which shares its Miami-Dade campus location, creating an integrated operational structure for the region's most consequential weather hazard.