Climate and Storm History of Port Charlotte, Florida

Port Charlotte. Florida is located along the state’s Gulf Coast.  As such, it experiences a humid subtropical climate, but is also somewhat unusual in its climate classification, bordering also on a tropical wet and dry climate.  For Port Charlotte, this means that summers are long, hot and humid and afternoon thunderstorms are frequent, almost a daily occurrence.  On the other hand, the winters are mild to warm with a distinct drop in precipitation.  Throughout the year, the temperature change only varies about 20 degrees Fahrenheit on a twice daily basis.

The type of climate affecting Port Charlotte has a monthly mean temperature above 70 degrees Fahrenheit every month of the year.  With a typically pronounced dry season, the driest month in Port Charlotte is January with precipitation less than 3 inches and also very low annual precipitation.  In essence, a tropical wet and dry climate tends to either see less rainfall than a tropical monsoon climate or have more pronounced dry seasons than a tropical monsoon climate.  In Port Charlotte, like most places that have tropical wet and dry climates, the dry season occurs during the time of lower sun and shorter days because of rainshadow effects during the 'high-sun' part of the year.  This would be from December through February in Port Charlotte.

Port Charlotte was severely impacted by Hurricane Charley on August 13, 2004.  Charley was predicted to hit the Tampa metropolitan area as a category 2 hurricane, but then took a last-minute right turn to head more directly east.  Charley intensified into a category 4 hurricane as it made landfall near Charlotte Harbor and caused severe damage in the city of Punta Gorda and in the Port Charlotte area.  The storm’s 145 mph maximum sustained winds destroyed almost half of the homes in the county and took a heavy ecological toll with damage to sensitive wetlands in the area.