Two dry park days at Walt Disney World, then a 70 to 80 percent storm weekend
Rain chances at Walt Disney World sit at 20 to 30 percent on Thursday and Friday, the tail of the dry stretch that came in with a rare mid September Saharan dust plume, with a northeast wind gusting to 30 mph and dew points down in the upper 60s. An upper level low then crosses Florida for the weekend and takes rain chances to 70 to 80 percent, with the strongest storms carrying frequent lightning, 40 to 50 mph gusts and 1 to 3 inches of rain. A high risk of life threatening rip currents rules the coast out as the backup plan.
Thursday and Friday hand Walt Disney World something a Central Florida September rarely gives up: two park days with rain chances down at 20 to 30 percent and humidity low enough to notice. They are the tail of the dry stretch that came in with a rare mid September plume of Saharan dust. The bill lands on Saturday, when an upper level low crossing Florida takes weekend rain chances to 70 to 80 percent, with the strongest storms carrying frequent lightning, 40 to 50 mph gusts and 1 to 3 inches of rain.
Thursday and Friday: 20 to 30 percent rain and a northeast wind
Orlando station WKMG News 6 put the update out on Thursday morning, from chief meteorologist Candace Campos. Drier air over the peninsula cuts rain chances to 20 to 30 percent across most of Central Florida for both days. Highs stay in the mid to upper 80s, and near and northwest of the I-4 corridor, which is the band the resort sits on, dew points drop into the upper 60s. That number is the one guests actually feel. It is the difference between a shirt that is wet by 11 a.m. and one that is not.
The trade is wind. Northeast winds increase to 15 to 20 mph through the afternoon with gusts of 25 to 30 mph, which is breezy rather than disruptive on land. It is worth a thought for anyone whose evening depends on the water or the sky: Disney's boat routes and the Skyliner are the first pieces of the transportation network to pause when conditions turn rough or lightning moves into the area, so guests at Caribbean Beach, Riviera, Pop Century and Art of Animation should leave a bus-shaped gap in a tight dining plan.
What makes a 20 to 30 percent day valuable here is how unusual it is in September. The resort's default this month is a sea breeze collision that fires storms in the early afternoon, directly on top of the busiest touring hours, and lightning in the area routinely pauses outdoor attractions, empties open-air queues and can push a nighttime show off its schedule. Two days in a row where that does not happen is two days where the plan made at rope drop survives to the evening.
Key Details
- Thursday and Friday: rain chances 20 to 30 percent, highs mid to upper 80s
- Wind: northeast 15 to 20 mph in the afternoon, gusts 25 to 30 mph
- Humidity: dew points into the upper 60s near and northwest of I-4
- Weekend: rain chances 70 to 80 percent, scattered to numerous storms each day, highs in the upper 80s and lows in the 70s
- Strongest storms: frequent lightning, 40 to 50 mph gusts, 1 to 3 inches of rain, minor flooding where it repeats
- At the coast: high risk of life threatening rip currents, rough surf, hazardous boating
- The dust: due over Florida on Monday, September 14, sitting mostly 5,000 to 20,000 feet up, with air quality briefly reduced while it is overhead
An upper level low takes the weekend to 70 to 80 percent
The pattern flips on Saturday. Moisture increases and an upper level low moves across the state, producing scattered to numerous showers and storms on both weekend days and pushing rain chances up to 70 to 80 percent. Temperatures stay seasonable through it, with highs in the upper 80s and lows in the 70s, so the rain is not buying anyone a cool day.
The number to watch is not the rain chance. A few stronger storms are expected each day with frequent lightning, wind gusts of 40 to 50 mph and locally heavy rainfall of 1 to 3 inches, enough for minor flooding where the heavy rain sets up over the same spot twice. Gusts in that range shred ponchos and turn umbrellas inside out, and they are strong enough to empty an open-air queue in about a minute.
The other difference is duration. A typical September storm at the parks is one cell that arrives around 3 p.m. and is gone by 5. A day described as scattered to numerous, under an upper level low, is one where the interruptions come back more than once.
What lightning actually shuts down in the parks
Lightning in the area is the practical trigger at Walt Disney World, not rain. When it is detected nearby, outdoor attractions go on temporary hold, resort pools and water slides clear, and the Skyliner and boat services suspend until the area is clear. None of it is a closure, and most holds are short, but they stack up across a day of repeated storms.
Some parts of the resort take that harder than others. The festival kitchens around World Showcase at EPCOT are open-air by design, and Disney has the International Food and Wine Festival running there through November 21. The walking trails and the safari at Animal Kingdom have almost no covered queue. Disney's own site lists Typhoon Lagoon as temporarily closed and points guests to Blizzard Beach instead, so a water park day this weekend means Blizzard Beach, where a lightning hold clears the slides and the wave pool at once.
Evenings carry the most risk to a plan, and they are the part of a Disney day most often surrendered to a storm cell that will not move. Nighttime fireworks at Magic Kingdom and EPCOT can be delayed, trimmed or called off for lightning or high wind, and that decision usually comes close to showtime rather than hours ahead. Disney's event calendar puts Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party on Friday, September 18 and again on Sunday, September 20, and the Sunday night sits inside the 70 to 80 percent window, so anyone holding that hard ticket should plan the indoor half of the night in advance.
Rip currents make the coast the wrong backup plan
The forecast's one outright danger warning is not for the parks. Beach conditions remain rough and dangerous, with a high risk of life threatening rip currents continuing along with rough surf and hazardous boating conditions.
That matters at Walt Disney World more than it looks, because the coast is the standard substitute for a washed-out park day, an hour east on the Beachline. Hazardous boating conditions are aimed at small craft rather than cruise ships, so a drive to Port Canaveral for a Disney Cruise Line sailing is a different question from a swim. The rip current risk is the part to take literally: this is a weekend to keep a beach afternoon on the sand.
The dust plume that dried the week out
The dry stretch behind Thursday and Friday started with something the state does not usually get this late. A plume of Saharan dust was due over Florida on Monday, September 14, and the rain chances fell away through the week much as the forecast said they would.
Dust lifted off the Sahara crosses the Atlantic several times every summer, so a plume by itself is ordinary. The date is the part worth noticing. By the middle of September the Saharan Air Layer has usually faded well back from its early summer peak, and Central Florida is normally finished with it for the year. News 6 meteorologist Jonathan Kegges flagged this round as uncommon for exactly that reason.
The layer itself is a slab of dry, dusty African air that rides west across the Atlantic between roughly 5,000 and 20,000 feet. Almost none of it reaches the ground in any quantity, which is why a dust week in Florida looks like a milky sky rather than anything you can feel underfoot.
Dry, dusty air aloft is hostile to the thunderstorms Central Florida runs on in September, and the rain chance forecast published with the plume slid steadily out of the widespread band and down into isolated coverage:
- Thursday, September 10: 70 percent
- Friday, September 11: 60 percent
- Saturday, September 12: 60 percent
- Sunday, September 13: 40 percent
- Monday, September 14: 40 percent
- Tuesday, September 15: 30 percent
- Wednesday, September 16: 20 percent
The floor that chart set on the Wednesday has held two days past it, which is what turned an ordinary September week at the resort into an unusually long stretch of open-air touring.
Hazy light, and the heat that came with it
Dust aloft scatters light: expect a whitened, milky sun through the middle of the day, a hazy horizon behind the castle and the Tree of Life, and unusually deep orange and red in the last half hour before sunset. Park photographers tend to get more out of a dust week than a clear one.
The heat was the price of the driest days. The same subsiding, rain-suppressing air that shut the storms down let afternoon temperatures run, and highs climbed back toward the mid 90s through midweek, which with Florida humidity behind them are heat index numbers that punish a midday park plan built on standing outdoors. That part has eased: Thursday and Friday run mid to upper 80s, and the weekend stays in the upper 80s.
The usual defences still apply. Tour hard in the first two hours and again after dark, drink more water than feels necessary, and deliberately book a long indoor block through the worst of the afternoon. The air-conditioned theatres do real work on a day like this, and so does an afternoon at the pool or at Blizzard Beach instead of a third park hour in full sun.
Air quality is the smaller caveat. Because the bulk of the dust stays thousands of feet up, most guests will notice haze rather than anything in their chest. Guests with asthma or another respiratory sensitivity are the exception, and this is a week to keep rescue medication in the park bag rather than back in the room.
The Buzz
A Saharan plume this deep into September is off schedule, which is why the first half of this forecast travelled beyond the usual Central Florida weather audience. It also landed in the same week as the climatological peak of the Atlantic hurricane season, the stretch every Florida traveller watches hardest, and it pointed the opposite way from what that peak usually implies: not a storm to track, but suppressed rain, rising heat and a hazy sky over the parks. The guests standing under it picked one of the cheapest weeks on Disney's own date-based calendar, where a one-day adult ticket to Magic Kingdom costs $159 before tax on Friday and Sunday against $199 for October 10 and $209 for December 28.
The dust is part of why this hurricane season has stayed quiet
El Nino has taken most of the credit for a historically quiet Atlantic season, and it is the main factor, but it has not been working alone. The Saharan Air Layer has been unusually prolific this year, and robust tropical waves coming off Africa have run straight into its dry, stable air and fizzled before they could organise.
Anything that survived the dust and made it as far as the Caribbean then met the second half of the problem: the wind shear that El Nino drives across the basin, which finished off the short-lived named storms that got that far. For a resort that sits in the middle of the Florida peninsula and spends every September watching the tropics, a dust-choked Atlantic is the rare kind of weather news that reads as good news.
Bank the outdoor hours now, because the weekend is a 1 to 3 inch rain risk
The concrete version, for a trip already on the books: Thursday and Friday are the outdoor days. Rope drop the open-air attractions, take the World Showcase loop, do the safari and the trails, and use the low humidity while it lasts. Take the sunset pictures too, because the hazy light is the one thing a dust week gives back. Saturday and Sunday are the days for table service, indoor shows and a resort afternoon, with evening plans kept loose because the call on fireworks comes near showtime.
Neither forecast puts an end date on anything. The September package never said when the plume would clear, and the Thursday one does not say when the wet pattern breaks; it keeps temperatures seasonable through the weekend, so the rain is not the front edge of anything cooler. Guests arriving Saturday should pack the poncho at the top of the bag and count on the afternoon storm coming back more than once a day.