Seriously thinking of cancelling our plans for May 13th. We land that day and because it’s mother day we were going to Epcot Chefs de France for dinner and to watch Illuminations.
The forecast is now just calling for rain and thunderstorms late afternoon and all evening. My understanding is that Illuminations would be cancelled in this type of weather which is one of the main reasons we are going…Forecast calls for some rain most of our trip which is fine we have our ponchos but serious bad weather that day has me very concerned…
You are still 5 days out. I’m not sure it is the right time to decide at this point. I think accuracy of weather reports will be significantly better in 2-3 days.
I wouldn’t worry just yet. I too have been closely monitoring the weather for the week. Looking at the country-wide map, there’s nothing I’m seeing that really justifies the forecasts. There’s a weak storm floating around Oklahoma and Texas, but it’ll run into a high pressure system so I’m not sure it’ll make it through (and it’s moving kinda north anyway). There’s also a storm over Mexico, and there might be remnants of that, but that should be pushed mostly to the south unless there’s a significant wind change. So clouds are very likely but full on constant rain is very doubtful.
To put it in perspective, last week around this time, they predicted this whole week would be nothing but storms and it’s now mostly sunny all week. This all changed on Saturday I believe.
EDIT: Ohhhh I see. I just looked at one of the models and apparently it’s a combination of the jetstream letting up a little and then a storm over Cuba getting a chance to expand to cover Florida. I hope it’s a changing prediction though.
I’m watching too. Florida weather is notorious for changing minute by minute. On our way down a couple of years ago, we had to hunker down just north of Orlando for a tornado watch and hail for 1.5 hours. Upon arrival, it was clear and sunny skies. Hoping it’s just pop-up showers and some ominous clouds next week.
I answered in the open thread but decided to post here too in case anyone else needs this information. When illumiNations is being prepared they load barges with the fireworks. You can see those barges in the water. If they are there you know that illumiNations will happen that night. The fireworks must go off once loaded.
I’ll be there as well on the 13th, but not at Epcot this day. One of our Epcot days is on the 14th. But I feel your pain. The weather forecast for that week isn’t particularly great, but partly cloudy with scattered t-storms means some sun and various spots of showers. Normal florida weather.
For those who are very familiar with Orlando Weather, what can we expect when the forecasts look like this? I doubt it’ll be constant showers… but will we at least get sun at some point?
Don’t panic (but pack some ponchos). I have had trips where the weather forecast a day before we left called for storms every day for the week. But then we went and there was hardly any rain. I can only recall one trip where we had very heavy steady rain for two days. Usually storms at this time of the year there are short lived.
Most likely the 90% chance of rain means there almost DEFINITELY will be rain, but it doesn’t mean that there will be rain 90% of the day. More likely it will be small percentage of actual hours spent at the park.
Even if it does rain a lot, MOST of the stuff you do at the parks is indoors. It is just getting from one ride to another.
The upshot is that a lot of predicted rain SHOULD help keep down some of the crowds, so it may improve wait times.
Temperatures are predicted to be hot, so you can get away with dressing lightly (tanks, shorts, etc) so that even if you get wet you can dry quickly. Personally, I recommend wearing non-cotton clothing, such as dri-weave stuff found in exercise clothing. Breathable, and when it gets wet, it dries quickly.
For me, the worst part of rain is that I wear glasses, so my glasses get so wet I can’t see. So a rain hat is a must (for me, just a ball cap).
I would not panic. Buy ponchos ahead and make sure you have a good app on your phone to watch the radar. I also bring a light breathable raincoat for light showers and i also wear glasses so i too never go without a hat. Its all part of the fun.
No that would not be fun, sorry. My only advise is this, watch the radar on your phone so that you can anticipate the rain before it get to you. Countless times i have watched people walking thru the rain getting soaking wet when if they had waited under cover a few more minutes they would have stayed dry. I have spent over 50 days in the parks this last year. Some days had beautiful forecasts and it has rained other trips rain was forecast the entire week and i never saw a drop. Needless to say it did rain many days while i was there and I never even broke out a poncho. I use an app called “storm radar” on my phone. It follows your location via GPS so you can tell how far away the rain is. If you know it is coming take cover and wait it out. Often this time of year the rain does not last very long. You cant change the weather the best you can do is be ready for it and stay ahead of it. I know you are looking forward to this trip and really hope the weather cooperates for you.
This is excellent advice! I use the Accuweather app and find it to be spot on. The main screen tells you when rain will start and stop in the next 120 minutes. We used this for 10 days over spring break, and it was eerily accurate. I change the location based on where we are, like Universal was a different location than WDW. It works and will save you from getting drenched!
Just finished our trip. We had several hours of cold drenching rain every day. While we had fun, the rain definitely impacted our trip. For anyone reading this facing a similar situation my advice is that the cheap ponchos won’t cut it in these circumstances. Ideally invest in good breathable rain gear. If you don’t have time to do that, then go with the heavier, more durable ponchos from Disney.
The parks will be far less crowded, and we took advantage of that, but make sure you have some plan B options.
thanks for this… another storm urge on its way when we arrive this weekend - we are prepared but appreciate message like this. I am sorry it may have spoilt your holiday as it went on for a long time!!
