Living in Florida’s peninsula, we have an ocean to the east of us, a large sea to the west, and in between we’re dotted and crisscrossed with lakes and streams.
Weather is primarily the movement of large air masses, picking up moisture along the way. And for millions of years, all that moisture surrounding us in Central Florida has created a variety of extreme weather events unlike anywhere else in the United States.
The region has seen powerful hurricanes created by warming temperatures in the Atlantic and Gulf, which push mountains of sea water into the coasts and dissolve miles of sandy beaches.
Tornadoes, spawned by warm moist air rising and colliding with cooling jet streams, can level forests within minutes. Freezes caused by large cold fronts pushing into the state from arctic regions can ice over and deaden fruitful citrus trees.
Wildfires caused by dry spells scorch thousands of acres of dry brush, and sinkholes collapse the ground into empty underground caverns once filled with water.
Even afternoon thunderstorms that rattle your windows and scare your pets are caused by Florida’s spot on the Earth.
“What’s very unique to Florida is that we have sea breezes coming from both sides of the state; those will collide and that will really kick off a thunderstorm,” said Robert Haley, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Melbourne.
In early times, most humans barely paid attention to weather calamities because the region was so sparsely populated. A tornado landed in an open field: Who knew?
But as the Central Florida region grew, we not only started to notice and protect ourselves, we changed.
“We’re certainly more sensitive to weather events because of how many more people are here in Florida now,” Haley said.
Today, the weather affects how much you pay for homeowner’s insurance and your groceries, determining whether that citrus fruit or vegetable you’re eating was grown in Florida or South America.
Weather also influences how much local governments will dig into tax revenues to shield us, including building stronger infrastructure to better direct the flow of stormwater, assembling emergency management teams and equipment, and organizing shelters.
As the Orlando Sentinel celebrates its 150th birthday this year, we take a look back at some of the most significant weather events that helped form our region today.
HURRICANES
The 1921 hurricane season was when many Orlandoans saw the ferocity of a tropical cyclone for the first time. And it laid the groundwork in the fast growing city in preparing for future storms over the next several decades.
On Oct. 25, a hurricane with winds up to 140 mph slammed into Tampa Bay and barreled eastward across the state, killing eight people and causing $10 million in damage – about $215 million today.
“Orlando escaped lightly, but the storm had a mean buzz and City Beautiful residents trembled,” read the headline on the front page of the Orlando Morning Sentinel.
Trees in Orlando were uprooted, signs blew down, a frame building collapsed after an oak fell on top of it, and power was out for days.
“New houses that have never leaked dripped water by the dishpan full,” according to the Sentinel story. “Panes that have never broken were demolished. And half-century old trees that had never trembled fell prone to the ground.”
Although Orlando was spared the worst of the hurricane, the storm provided city leaders with a new perspective in planning the city’s growth.
“Catastrophic hurricanes over the past several decades have fundamentally changed the way Florida communities are planned, designed and constructed today, along the coast and inland,” said Dennis Smith, director of the Mark & Marianne Barneby Planning and Development Lab at Florida State University.
Since then, buildings have been designed and built to withstand strong winds. Roads are constructed to redirect stormwater runoff to prevent flooding in neighborhoods. Cities and counties invest large portions of their fiscal budgets toward emergency management teams and preparedness plans, including setting up shelters and operations centers.
Still, Central Florida would live through even more destructive tropical systems that led to continued improvements.
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Some damage from Hurricane Donna, which hit Florida in 1960. A sign on a boarded-up window reads “Closed till Donna Goes.” (Orlando Sentinel file)
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Some damage from Hurricane Donna, which hit Florida in 1960. A sign on a boarded-up window reads “Closed till Donna Goes.” (Orlando Sentinel file)
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On Sept. 10, 1960, Hurricane Donna barged into the Florida Keys as a powerful Category 4 storm, packing winds of 145 mph and slashing its way northward through Florida’s spine.
Donna was barely a tropical storm as she made her way through Orlando, and there were no fatalities here. But Donna left behind an expensive mess totaling an estimated $2.7 million in damages, or about $30 million today.
Dropping 4.42 inches of rain in one day, Donna inundated about 86 homes in the Orlo Vista community. Even today, despite a decades-long effort to improve stormwater infrastructure, Orlo Vista continues to struggle with flooding.
More than four decades later, Central Florida suffered what was arguably its most devastating and catastrophic hurricane season in 2004, when the region was blasted with three powerful tropical cyclones within six weeks.
The overwhelming one-two-three punches began Aug. 13, when Hurricane Charley — a compact but brutally muscular storm — landed on Captiva Island and then pounded its way up the state’s midsection.
Charley was still a bully of a storm when it reached Kissimmee just before 9 p.m. with 100 mph winds, later slashing its way into Orlando. It tore off roofs, knocked down trees and power lines, and flooded thousands of homes along its path.
More than 500,000 residents in Central Florida lost power, some for longer than a week. For months, thousands of Central Florida homes had blue tarps on their damaged roofs as owners waited for insurance payments and repairs.
In all, Charley killed nine Floridians directly and 20 indirectly. It caused $5.4 billion — or about $9.5 billion today — in damages statewide.
“That storm reinforced an important lesson: hurricane risk is not just a coastal issue,” Smith said. “Inland communities, such as Orlando, absolutely must consider wind vulnerability, infrastructure resilience, … and rapid population growth in their planning and development decisions.”
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Blue tarps still cover roofs in February 2005 that were damaged during the multiple hurricanes that hit Central Florida in 2004. (Orlando Sentinel file)
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Blue tarps still cover roofs in February 2005 that were damaged during the multiple hurricanes that hit Central Florida in 2004. (Orlando Sentinel file)
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But the 2004 hurricane season wasn’t finished with Central Florida yet.
Barely a month later, Hurricane Frances slammed into Fort Pierce off Florida’s east coast on Sept. 5, with wind gusts at nearly 130 mph, before cutting northwestward through Central Florida.
More than 2.8 million Floridians were ordered to leave their homes in the largest evacuation in the state’s history. Because Frances was such a wide storm at 275 miles, it impacted nearly every Florida county.
Public emergency shelters took in more than 86,000 people, even as many people were still traumatized and recovering from Charley’s devastation. And the lights went out again for many residents who had just gotten their power back.
Then came Hurricane Jeanne on Sept. 26, which slammed into Hutchinson Island with 120 mph winds before driving north across the state. Yet again, millions of Florida residents were left without power for days as utility companies were stretched thin.
Already by this time, a Florida building code had been implemented statewide, while Citizens Property Insurance was created as a nonprofit insurer of last resort for homeowners.
“What we’re constantly finding is that anything built after 2005 is performing very well,” said Rusty Payton, chief executive officer of the Florida Home Builders Association. “There’s no doubt that we’re building better and stronger homes.”
TORNADOS
When people think of destructive weather events in Florida, they often think of hurricanes. But tornadoes have also cast a dark chapter on Central Florida’s history.
On the evening of Feb. 22, 1998, while most residents prepared to turn in for the night, a line of powerful thunderstorms from a storm system in the Gulf of Mexico sped eastward into Central Florida. Three “supercell” storms — dangerous because they last for long periods of time, have the potential to rotate and can spawn violent tornadoes — moved into the region at around midnight, spawning a total of 11 twisters.
Known as The Night of Terror, it was the deadliest such event in Florida history, killing 42 people across five counties, leaving hundreds injured and causing more than $108 million in damages, or about $207 million today.
With winds as high as 260 mph, the swath of destruction stretched from Osceola, where 15 people were killed at the Morningside Acres mobile home park and eight died at the Ponderosa RV Park in Kissimmee, to Seminole County, where 13 people were killed after their mobile homes in southeastern Sanford were obliterated.
“Some of the victims may have been blown 100 feet into the air and fallen more than a quarter mile away,” according to an Orlando Sentinel report. “One man was identified by an unusual tattoo. Others had to be identified by fingerprints.”
Nearly every death was a resident of a manufactured home, trailer or recreational vehicle. Within a year, the Legislature beefed up safety regulations on mobile homes, requiring them to be secured with anchors and tie-downs to prevent overturning and sliding during heavy winds.
Horror struck again nine years later. Early morning temperatures were several degrees above normal on Feb. 2, 2007 as a line of strong thunderstorms moved east across Interstate 75. By the time they reached northern Lake County, a strong wind shear created multiple twisters in what would be known as the deadly Groundhog Day Tornadoes.
The first touched down in Lady Lake, lifting roofs off homes and overturning mobile homes. Within six horrific minutes, eight people were killed.
After the first tornado dissipated, a second twister spawned near Paisley, sped eastward and intensified before touching down in Lake Mack, killing 13 people, most while they slept, and obliterating everything in its path. Portions of mobile homes were wrapped around or atop remaining trees.
After that twister dissipated, a third rose in Volusia County, damaging hundreds of homes before moving off the coast.
“It was a terrible trio of tornadoes — not just one — that swept through Central Florida on Friday,” according to an Orlando Sentinel report. “They skipped over some communities, then slammed down on others. All the while the twisters were expanding and contracting, growing weaker and stronger — up to 165 mph — before finally washing out to sea.”
The grisly event lasted nearly five hours and caused an estimated $218 million in damages, or about $350 million today.
But twisters in Central Florida’s history did not just hit rural areas. They’ve also struck Orlando’s core.
On April 2, 1959, Rosie Varnado, 40, died after she “was crushed under a cabbage palm tree as a churning, roaring, capricious and violent tornado ripped and chewed its way northeast through [Azalea Park], mowing down houses, power lines, autos, trailers and anything and everything in its path,” according to a front page story in the Sentinel.
She was inside her trailer home on Hibiscus Road when “the twister threw the trailer and Mrs. Varnado 100 feet. The trailer frame went a block.”
FREEZES
The winter season of 1894 began with a string of warm, sunny days. Afternoon temperatures hovered in the 80s — including on Christmas Day, when many Orlandoans took to celebrating the holiday with picnics.
But the pleasant weather took a dramatic turn on Dec. 29, when gusty winds rolled in and plunged temperatures to a record-low 18 degrees, an historic cold that has not been experienced in Orlando since.
For most of the region’s fledgling citrus industry, it was devastating. Growers panicked as they watched their entire life’s savings invested in orange and grapefruit trees suddenly die off.
One of the most graphic descriptions was from historian Karl Abbott fifty years later in his book “Open for the Season.”
Outside his parents’ Orlando hotel, the San Juan, he recalled “a fine looking gray-haired man in a black frock coat and Stetson hat walked up the street in front of the hotel and looked at the thermometer, groaned, ‘Oh, my God’ and shot himself through the head.”
A little over a month later, another spell of freezing weather bullied its way into Central Florida and slammed the remaining citrus groves that had just started to recover. Low temperatures plummeted to 19 degrees on Feb. 7, 1895 and 22 degrees a day later.
In all, Florida growers reported nearly 22,000 acres of trees destroyed during the Great Freezes of 1894 and 1895.
But in some ways, they were almost a blessing for Orlando’s economy.
“Prior to those freezes, northern Florida was the citrus belt of the state. But a lot of that shifted southward [into Central Florida],” said Jeremy Hileman, assistant curator at the Orange County Regional History Center. “Citrus later became the symbol of Central Florida.”
But more freezes were to come, although not as harsh.
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Greg Ingraham tries to catch a mouthful of snow in Altamonte Springs on Jan. 19, 1977 during a rare Florida snowfall. (Orlando Sentinel file)
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Greg Ingraham tries to catch a mouthful of snow in Altamonte Springs on Jan. 19, 1977 during a rare Florida snowfall. (Orlando Sentinel file)
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On January 19, 1977, the Sentinel Star published a front page photo of a teenage boy sticking out his tongue in Altamonte Springs as he tried catching snowflakes. Another photo showed a woman writing “FLA” with her finger on a car’s snow-covered windshield.
Snow was falling in Central Florida after a strong arctic front socked the region with three days of bitter cold, along with nearly an inch of snow.
“Thousands of Central Floridians, most of them children, ran outdoors to witness the falling flakes,” Sentinel reporter Leonard Novarro reported. “For most of the children, it was the first time they had seen snow.”
Emergency agencies’ phone systems in Seminole and Orange counties crashed as hundreds of people called to report power outages. Motorists suffered car accidents caused by icy roads. And some residents just “freaked out” over seeing the white stuff, according to the Sentinel Star.
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Dead citrus trees as seen looking northeast from Citrus Tower in Clermont in February 1985. (Orlando Sentinel file)
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Dead citrus trees as seen looking northeast from Citrus Tower in Clermont in February 1985. (Orlando Sentinel file)
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But it was the freeze of 1983 that destroyed a large portion of Central Florida’s remaining orange and grapefruit crops. Temperatures dropped to 21 degrees on Christmas Day and 20 degrees a day later.
The region faced another brutal, 19-degree cold wave in January 1985 that again froze millions of orange trees on thousands of acres across Central Florida.
“The cutting cold … .strained utility companies, stalled cars, burst water pipes and shocked thousands of tourists seeking Florida sunshine,” Orlando Sentinel reporter Tom Scherberger wrote.
The consistent freezes spurred many smaller growers to give up their careers and sell off their land to developers. There were 30,000 growers across the state in early 1985. Today, there are fewer than 2,770 citrus growers in Florida, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
“For the smaller growers and mid-size growers, land was becoming so valuable for housing and other commercial development, because this area was growing so much,” Hileman said. “It was just not worth it for small growers anymore.”
SINKHOLES
If you see a nearly perfectly round lake in Central Florida, such as Lake Eola in Orlando, odds are it was formed by a sinkhole.
Sinkholes have always been part of the state’s landscape, created by long periods of droughts or heavy rains. As the underground limestone dissolves, cracks and holes are created, which eventually cause the ground above to collapse.
“They get a lot of press because they can be catastrophic,” said John Jaeger, chair of the University of Florida’s department of geological sciences. “People are aware of them because more people see them.”
In 2013, a 100-foot-wide sinkhole swallowed entire multi-story residential buildings at Summer Bay Resort in Clermont.
But one of the world’s most famous sinkholes opened up in Winter Park.
On the afternoon of May 8, 1981, Mae Rose Owens walked out to her backyard to feed her dog, Muffin, when she noticed a nearby palm tree and a portion of her yard slowly sink into the ground off Denning Drive near Fairbanks Avenue.
By 4 a.m., she was startled awake by strange sounds that sounded like “the crackling of the earth,” she told a Sentinel reporter.
By noon, the massive sinkhole had grown to swallow Owens’ home of 40 years, along with a chunk of a city swimming pool and portions of nearby streets.
Meanwhile, the owner of German Car Service, Karl Schoepflin, arrived in time to watch in horror as his shop, five expensive Porsche sports cars and a camper rolled over, one by one into the sinkhole.
He figured he lost about $250,000, or about $900,000 today.
“All the money I had, I put down in that lot,” Schoepflin said to a Sentinel reporter in 1982. “It’s gone, so consequently my retirement went with it….I just lost my butt. That’s all there’s to it.”
When the ground finally settled, the massive cavity was 350 feet wide and nearly a hundred feet deep.
Eventually, the now-famous hole stabilized and became a tourist attraction. It’s now called Lake Rose, named after Owens.
“My life is in that hole,” Owens told a Sentinel reporter in 1984.
HAILSTORMS
On the evening of March 25, 1992, Central Florida was bombarded with a rare hailstorm that was “more punishing than Hurricane Donna … and disrupted tens of thousands of lives,” according to the Sentinel. A headline read: “All hail breaks loose.”
Stones as large as grapefruits rained down on houses and cars. Thousands of roofs were damaged. Windows were smashed. Cars looked like they were pelted by multiple golf balls.
After the storm passed, hail was pushed into large piles along the sides of roads, turning Central Florida into a wintry scene.
“It was bizarre and brutal,” the Sentinel report stated. “A meteorological rarity.”
All together, the storm caused more than $130 million in damages.
GARY BOGDEN, ORLANDO SENTINEL
A lone house sits in the path of a raging brushfire in Brevard County on July 2, 1998, just west of Mimms, Fla. Wildfires devoured dozens of homes in Central Florida and forced the evacuation of over 30,000 residents. (Orlando Sentinel file)
WILDFIRES
As the winter season wound down in early 1998, Central Florida received more-than-average rainfall, which spurred growth of new underbrush and vegetation in woodlands and rural areas.
But by April, a high pressure system plopped itself on Central Florida and the rainy weather came to a sudden halt, as if a faucet had suddenly been shut off. A vicious drought began, more reminiscent of Arizona than tropical Florida.
By mid-May, wildfires were sparked by the dry vegetation that had flourished during the rainy spell. Rising temperatures and gusty winds also fed blazes across Central Florida, causing some to explode in size.
By July 2, when Orlando temperatures topped 101 degrees, wildfires had raged for more than 40 days, burning more than 300,000 acres across the region.
It was dubbed the Florida Firestorm.
More than 40,000 people were driven from their homes. In rural east Orange, deputies knocked on doors to evacuate residents whose homes were threatened by a 2,000-acre wildfire near Christmas.
Holiday fireworks shows were canceled. The popular Pepsi 400 car race in Daytona Beach was postponed until the fall. The entire county of Flagler was evacuated.
“I hope you will join me and pray for rain,” Gov. Lawton Chiles said, with a stunned look on his face after touring fire-stricken areas, according to the Sentinel.
In an unprecedented move, a stretch of Interstate 95 was shut down for days because of the thick smoke and flames.
“It’s pretty frantic out there,” said Steve Homan, a spokesman for the Florida Department of Transportation. “The scale of this is far beyond anything we’ve experienced before.”
By mid-July, the weather turned and the skies opened with rain.
But in all, nearly half-a-million acres and more than 150 homes and structures were destroyed.
Today, many residents — who may have previously complained about the smoky air — understand the benefits of fighting wildfires with fire by burning off palmettos, shrubs and other flammable vegetation. State biologists also consider prescribed burns, 88,000 of which take place each year, as essential for restoring prairies, forests and marshes with new growth.
Want more Orlando history? Buy a copy of the Orlando Sentinel’s 150th anniversary book with 150 front pages from our 150 years. Get it OrlandoSentinel.com/150yearsbook and see more anniversary merchandise at OrlandoSentinel.com/150yearsmerch
Alice J. Roden started working for Trending Insurance News at the end of 2021. Alice grew up in Salt Lake City, UT. A writer with a vast insurance industry background Alice has help with several of the biggest insurance companies. Before joining Trending Insurance News, Alice briefly worked as a freelance journalist for several radio stations. She covers home, renters and other property insurance stories.