ORLANDO, Fla. – As the festive spirit lingers, I sincerely hope that your Christmas was filled with joy and laughter, surrounded by loved ones. Let’s continue to bask in the joyous atmosphere while enjoying the favorable weather that graces our city.

Before diving into the upcoming weather forecast, I truly wish that this holiday season was a memorable one for you and your family.

With the New Year just around the corner, 2026 is almost upon us, bringing with it aspirations and resolutions for many in Central Florida. Meanwhile, it seems Mother Nature has her own plans, ushering in a taste of winter just in time for New Year’s Eve celebrations.

Despite the recent trend of unusually warm afternoons and comfortably cool mornings and evenings, brace yourselves as Monday night into Tuesday promises to deliver a chill reminiscent of an open freezer, marking a stark contrast to our recent weather patterns.

While our state has been characterized by above average afternoon temperatures, and rather pleasant mornings and evenings, Monday night into Tuesday is going to feel like you left the freezer door open all night long.

A powerful storm system is slated to start developing as you’re reading this article. As it slides generally eastward across the northern tier United States, it’s going to yank fresh Canadian air down south in the form of near freezing if not legitimately freezing temperatures.

Before I give you a brief play-by-play of what that looks like, Sunday and Monday should continue to hold these warm and quality weather conditions around for a little while longer.

High pressure sets right off our Gulf coast. When you look at the current wind flow around our region, it’s almost like you could reach out and touch the center of high pressure if you were a western Floridian.

Because we’re so close to the focused sinking air within higher pressure systems, moisture is also trapped close to us at ground level. Winds are rather calm, which means we could wake up tomorrow and Monday morning’s in some fairly dense fog.

Most computer models suggest we’ve got abundant moisture squished down within the first 100 feet of our atmosphere if you think about it three-dimensionally. With a lack of potent wind speeds that moisture is likely to take on the form of clouds at the surface – fog.

So be mindful of this is you plan to hit the road or step out for a morning workout before church, breakfast, or prepping brunch tomorrow and Monday while the kids are still on their winter break.

This will burn off shortly after the sun comes up though, and we’ll be back in a mix of clouds and sunshine with afternoon high’s touching the upper 70s. We’ll try to see a few 80s out there across Central Florida, before we come crashing down late Monday night and through Tuesday morning.

The cold front is expected to reach us and swing through late in the evening on Monday night with temperatures absolutely tumbling cliffside as we approach sunrise Tuesday morning.

The coldest weather settles in with us by Wednesday morning, where a number of our morning low temps could be hovering between the upper 20s and low-mid 30s from our northern counties back down across the Orlando metro area.

Given this is such a dense slug of cold air, and we’ve got lots of warmth out in front of it, the air will be moving pretty fast as well. Wind speeds will pick up both ahead of the front and back behind it for an extended window, bringing feels like temps well into freezing territory.

Northern Central Floridians should be prepped for extreme wind chill, and feels like temps in the mid 20s through areas of Alachua, Marion, and upper Lake/Sumter counties. Orlando, and those of us in Polk, Osceola, Brevard will also feel like the 30s for Wednesday morning especially.

These cold temperatures will be with us through the New Year, so absolutely take this into account as you button up for the celebrations and plan your holiday occasion. If you plan to be outdoors, you might want to carry an extra layer or two if you can. Or maybe move the shenanigans indoors if you want to show off the outfit of the evening.