Weather in December in South Brevard, Florida

December in South Brevard is mild and mostly dry, with 1991 to 2020 normal highs near 74 degrees and lows of 55.6 at Melbourne International Airport and 52.3 at the Palm Bay cooperative station.

The National Weather Service forecast point for Palm Bay takes its current observations from Melbourne International Airport (KMLB) (NWS Palm Bay forecast). NOAA NCEI also publishes normals for station USC00086761 in Palm Bay, and in December the two disagree mostly at night: the Palm Bay normal low of 52.3 degrees is 3.3 degrees under the airport's 55.6 (55.6 minus 52.3), while its 74.6 degree normal high is 0.7 above the airport's 73.9 (NCEI normals, Palm Bay station; NCEI normals, KMLB).

The month cools steadily toward the new year. At Melbourne International Airport the normal high falls from 75.3 degrees on December 1 (NCEI daily normals, KMLB) to 72.4 on December 31, and the normal low from 57.8 to 53.1 (NCEI daily normals, KMLB). The Palm Bay station starts December at 76.2 and 54.7 (NCEI daily normals, Palm Bay) and ends it at 73.2 and 50.1, 4.6 degrees cooler at dawn than on December 1 (54.7 minus 50.1) (NCEI daily normals, Palm Bay).

Warm afternoons have not disappeared. NCEI counts 11.5 December days at 80 degrees or warmer at the Palm Bay station and 8.6 at KMLB. For Micco and Barefoot Bay at the south end of the county, Vero Beach Regional Airport (USW00012843) in Indian River County averages a December high of 75.4 and a low of 56.1 (NCEI normals, Vero Beach).

The forecasts and climate reports for all of South Brevard come from the NWS Melbourne office, whose station digest lists Palm Bay, Indialantic, Melbourne Beach and Satellite Beach among the communities a short distance away, with Grant-Valkaria and Sebastian a slightly longer commute to the south. The NWS Melbourne station digest says cold fronts occasionally bring cold air to the region, but the nearby Atlantic will usually modify it so that the cold does not last long (NWS Melbourne station digest). The NCEI coastal water temperature guide lists December averages of 75.6 degrees at the buoy 20 nautical miles east of Cape Canaveral and 70.3 degrees at Trident Pier in Port Canaveral (NCEI coastal water temperature guide).

A December freeze is uncommon in South Brevard: NCEI puts the chance of at least one 32 degree night in December at 16.4 percent at the Palm Bay station and 5.7 percent at Melbourne International Airport.

Cool mornings are the usual December pattern rather than frost. The airport averages 10.0 December nights at or below 50 degrees and 2.5 at or below 40, with 0.4 nights at or below freezing (NCEI normals, KMLB). The Palm Bay station averages 9.0 nights at or below 50 and 2.2 at or below 40 (NCEI normals, Palm Bay station), and Vero Beach Regional Airport, south of Barefoot Bay, gives an 8.3 percent December chance of a freeze.

The December record low at Melbourne International Airport is 21 degrees, set on December 25, 1983, and the December record high is 90 degrees, reached on December 3, 2018 and December 6, 1942 (NWS Melbourne December climate report). The NWS Melbourne history of December hazardous weather describes December 25 to 26, 1983 as a statewide cold outbreak in which unusual cold broke irrigation and water pipes and damaged citrus and vegetable crops (NWS Melbourne December hazardous weather history).

Two other December outbreaks reached the Melbourne area. In the arctic outbreak of December 13 and 14, 1962, the low reached 22 in Melbourne, according to the same NWS Melbourne history (NWS Melbourne December history, 1962). From December 22 to 25, 1989, a hard freeze covered all 67 Florida counties, and snow and sleet fell as far south as a Sarasota-Melbourne line (NWS Melbourne December history, 1989).

December is one of the driest months in South Brevard, with 1991 to 2020 normals of 2.36 inches at Melbourne International Airport and 2.46 inches at the Palm Bay station, roughly a third of the September normals of 7.63 and 7.95 inches.

Totals swing from year to year. NCEI gives Melbourne International Airport a 25th percentile December total of 0.73 inches and a 75th percentile of 2.94 inches, with 3.9 days of a tenth of an inch or more and 0.6 days of an inch or more (NCEI normals, KMLB). December has no thunderstorm season of its own at Melbourne International Airport: the KMLB report for December 2025 lists zero thunderstorm days.

December 2025 fit the dry side of that range. NWS Melbourne reported 1.28 inches at Melbourne, 1.08 inches below normal, and 0.72 inches at Vero Beach, 1.82 below normal, and wrote that amounts on the Treasure Coast from the December 6 to 8 front were around a half an inch or less (NWS Melbourne December 2025 summary). No daily rainfall record was set at Melbourne that month, and the office wrote that up to 90 to 99 percent of the December rain across its area fell from the showers and storms of December 6 through 8.

The coming December may run wetter. The NWS Melbourne dry season forecast, issued September 30, 2026, splits the November 2026 to April 2027 dry season into a November to January period and a February to April period, and the office headlines an increased potential for well above normal rainfall and severe weather this dry season (NWS Melbourne dry season forecast). The next issuance is due in January 2027.

December 2025 was warmer than normal at Melbourne International Airport, averaging 66.6 degrees, 1.9 above the 1991 to 2020 normal, before a strong cold front on December 30 brought the coldest New Year's Eve morning since 2000.

The KMLB report for the month, issued January 1, 2026, gives the highest reading as 84 degrees on December 5 and the lowest as 35 degrees on December 31 (NWS Melbourne climate report, December 2025). The strongest gust was 35 mph from the north on December 14, no thunderstorm was reported all month, and heating degree days totaled 52 against a normal of 109, 57 fewer than normal at Melbourne International Airport.

NWS Melbourne summed the month up in a public statement on January 4, 2026: Melbourne had a monthly average temperature of 66.6 degrees, 1.9 above normal, and no daily temperature record was set or tied at Melbourne (NWS Melbourne December 2025 summary). The office wrote that the late cold front made it the coldest New Year's Eve morning since 2000 across its area, and that the cold snap was strong enough to drop monthly averages by a full degree.

December opens the three month winter season at Melbourne International Airport, and its 64.7 degree normal mean sits between November at 69.0 and January at 61.7, the coldest month of the year at KMLB.

The step from November to January is larger at night than by day in Palm Bay. At the Palm Bay cooperative station the normal low falls from 58.5 in November to 52.3 in December and 49.0 in January, while the normal high falls from 79.0 to 74.6 and then 72.9 (NCEI normals, Palm Bay station). Rain stays low through all three months at KMLB, at 2.55, 2.36 and 2.63 inches (NCEI normals, KMLB).

The winter of 2025 to 2026 shows how December can mislead. NWS Melbourne reported that average temperatures from December 1 through January 14 ran around 1 to 3 degrees above normal across its area, before strong cold fronts turned the second half of the season much colder (NWS Melbourne winter 2025-2026 summary). Melbourne finished the winter with 3.65 inches of rain against a 6.97 inch normal, and Vero Beach, south of Micco and Barefoot Bay, with 4.30 inches against 7.48 (NWS Melbourne winter 2025-2026 rainfall).

That dry winter had consequences beyond the rain gauge in Palm Bay and the rest of east central Florida. NWS Melbourne wrote that rainfall during the season was infrequent and often on the lighter side, which led to the development and expansion of drought across east central Florida (NWS Melbourne winter 2025-2026 rainfall summary). The dry December of 2025, with 1.28 inches at Melbourne, opened that season.