The Florida Keys came through the 2009 hurricane season completely untouched — no watches, warnings or evacuations — for the first time in years. Still, 2009 did include some news on the weather front.</p><p>“I’d say the big Keys weather story of 2009 was the complete lack of a hurricane threat,” said Matt Strahan, meteorologist in charge of the National Weather Service forecast office in Key West, just before he left to spend Christmas in Kansas City, which got blasted by a Midwest blizzard. </p><p>By e-mail, Strahan said, “The Keys themselves never had a storm forecast to come near us, which gave us a much needed breather, and allowed the tourism industry to bounce back.”</p><p>Strahan also mentioned the prolonged dry spell in Key West as one of 2009’s important weather stories, and noted some other weather news of 2009 and developments on the horizon.</p><p><b>Rain breaks drought</b></p><p>Key West was having a drier-than-normal year, but rains late in the year helped lessen the rain deficit in the island city. Rainfall will still likely be below normal for the year, Strahan said.</p><p>From January through April 2009, the city had 4.77 inches less than normal, with only 2.88 inches recorded over the four months.</p><p>But November and December were wetter than normal in Key West. By December 28, Key West had received 4.47 inches for the month, 2.54 inches above normal. Just on Dec. 18, 3.28 inches of rain fell. November had 6.63 inches total, about 4 inches above normal. </p><p>By Dec. 28, Key west had received 33.44 inches for the year, 5.29 inches below normal.</p><p>A rain rain gauge in Key Largo showed 41.16 inches in 2009. The same gauge showed that 2007 was the wettest of recent years, with a total of 61.38 inches of rain. Records for Tavernier from 1936 to 2008 show an average rainfall of about 46 inches a year.</p><p>There’s usually a big difference between Miami’s rainfall, with an average of 60 inches of rain a year, and Key West’s, with an average of about 39 inches — the same amount Miami received in 1956, its driest year in the last six decades, according to the Southeast Regional Climate Center at Florida State University.</p><p><b>El Niño impacts</b></p><p>The El Niño effect — a change in wind patterns that can disrupt developing tropical systems — may make for a stormy winter in the Keys, Strahan said.</p><p>“An El Niño usually brings stronger and more frequent cold snaps to northern and central Florida, along with severe thunderstorms and tornadoes up there,” he said. Because some of the cold fronts will make it to the Keys like the one on Dec. 18, “It would be a good idea for residents to break out their NOAA weather radios and set them up to get severe thunderstorm and tornado warnings this winter. Newer NOAA weather radios can be programmed to only go off for tornado and severe thunderstorm warnings in the Keys, as opposed to older ones that would wake people in the middle of the night for a marine warnings, which resulted in them simply being turned off.”</p><p>Earlier warnings, more data</b> Strahan said that next hurricane season, watches and warnings will be issued 12 hours earlier than they have been.</p><p>“We’ll be issuing tropical storm and hurricane watches at 48 hours, and warnings at 36 hours, as opposed to the old times of 36 and 24 hours respectively,” he said. Forecasters are able to advance their advisories “because the accuracy at the new time frames is now better than it used to be a few years ago at the previous, shorter time frames,” Strahan said, adding “It is too early to say how bad next [hurricane season] will be, of course.” </p><p>The weather service is office is “still perfecting” computer modeling of local winds and waves under hurricane conditions, Strahan said. When completed, the models “should help us do a better job of forecasting” a storm’s effects on the Keys. The models may be completed as soon as January, he said.</p><p>Scientists and anyone interested in weather will also have more information available from 11 new weather observation stations that have been set up in the Keys, including Citizen Weather Observer Program sites. The automated stations are hosted by residents, schools and entities such as Florida Keys Aqueduct Authority.</p><p>You can see the weather data from Keys at http://www.srh.noaa.gov/key/?n=obs. The main Keys weather page is http://www.srh.noaa.gov/key/.