The hot season in Northwest Florida lasts from May 15 to October 2, with an average daily maximum temperature of 84°F. The hottest month of the year is July, with an average high of 89°F and a low of 73°F. The Gulf Stream that crosses the Florida Strait and then north of Florida's east coast helps maintain moderate temperatures a few miles inland, from Stuart on the east coast to Ft. Lauderdale on the west coast.
At the Miami Beach station, the average maximum temperature in July is 87.4°F, while at the airport it is 89.5°F. In Tallahassee, North Florida, the proportion of days with degrees of cooling in the total is 61 percent, while in Atlanta, Georgia, it is 36 percent. Head-on rains tend to be more pronounced in late winter, creating a kind of secondary wet season in the Panama City Beach area at the end of the dry season. Low-pressure systems that cross the continent from west to east, generally following the jet stream, exert a strong and frequent influence on winter temperatures in North Florida, but decrease both in strength and frequency towards the south of the peninsula.
Zone 10b is located off the coast of South Florida and much of the Everglades, where extremely low annual temperatures range between 35 and 40°F (2 to 4°C). The average surface water temperature at Northwest Florida Beach International Airport will increase during the summer, rising 5°F, from 79°F to 84°F. In July, trade winds south of the subtropical ridge that moves north expand northwest to Florida. While it is common in most of peninsular Florida for the proportion of degrees to day of cooling in the total to be 75 percent or more, in the Gainesville area this proportion falls to 70 percent and in the western Panhandle it almost reaches 60 percent.
In Florida during July and August, it is common for daily temperatures to fluctuate between 73°F and 95°F. Panama City Beach, one of the main centers on the Emerald Coast of the Florida Panhandle, attracts visitors from all over with its sugar-sand beaches and abundant sunshine. Unlike other parts of the region, maximum temperatures in Florida contain approximately half of annual occurrences on average. Like other parts of southeastern United States, Florida has a winter maximum in conditions of heavy fog.
