Could ECFL Drought End in a BIG Way?!!

(Could the end to the extreme drought in Brevard County be coming to and end? This anticipated rainfall depiction is from the HPC forecast for this upcoming week)

SYNOPSIS: Things so far pretty much on schedule in the short term. 6AM KSC Sounding depicts the retreating ridge axis overhead at roughly 850mb level (6000 ft) with light SW flow developing above there. In essence, things continue to change since yesterday with more in store. PWAT at 1.65" (down from this time yesterday) with the driest of air in the column located within a somewhat broad, critical mid-lower level range for rain shower development. Hence the lack of precipitation this hour across Central Florida. Meanwhile, mid-upper level troughing down the Mississippi River Valley and attendant surface trough (cold front) reside to the north and just west of the state. The mid-level low will sink further south and a bit east during the course of the day and begin to cut off tonight.  At the surface, the ridge extends across the Florida - Georgia border this morning, but will be cut eroded as upper level support for this feature shifts further east and the aforementioned trough progresses further south during the day. As such, by day's end we will be under an entirely new bag of tricks from what we've endured for several weeks now and are still experiencing at sunrise this Sunday morning. Elsewhere, tremendously huge area of low pressure encompasses the Western Caribbean and across Central America, Honduras, and the Bay of Campeche. Locally, of surprise is the thunderstorms over the Florida Keys this morning. Coverage appears much stronger and extensive than was being considered by the local office down there; however, activity was anticipated. Good show guys.

 

TODAY: Very nice day in store for the start. The sky was SO BLUE this morning. Like none I've seen for quite some time. Winds were light and variable with cloud motions aloft from West to East and anomalous  rain echoes of unknown origin (not real) moving from SW to NE. The atmosphere over Central Florida, for the most part, requires continued modification for any rain to co-exist under current conditions. As such, most of the day will be quite pleasant. At least until early afternoon. For now, will run with a 'worst case scenario', which is not at all consistent with current official resource proclamation. In keeping with yesterday's schedule, the best chance of rainfall today some of which will be in the form of thunder, will occur toward very late afternoon through late evening from the Cape and points north as the ridge is finally cut off to the north and deeper SW flows ensues ahead of the low pressure over the Deep South. Central area activity should be pretty isolated though (even in this worst case scenario). Some of the storms north of I-4 could be strong, although I am a bit leery concerning coverage over this region. It might be much lower than current 'official' thinking (and as indicated by overnight NAM/GFS runs). South Florida continues for one more full day of what has been status quo for quite some time...in fact, extreme SE Florida might never feel the impacts from the trough at all (ever), at least not south of the South Shores of Lake O. SW Interior and coastal areas could see afternoon and evening storms though, but under entirely different circumstances.

 

TOMORROW: Monday might actually appear to the innocent by-stander to be like a normal summer day; one in which there are afternoon and evening thunderstorms which would favor the east side of the state north of West Palm - Port Charlotte line, but anyone/anywhere in the state will have a shot. However, in reality, the synoptical set up will be nothing like those of summer for the most part...at least not mid-summer. Thunderstorms/rain showers possible by mid-afternoon to late evening once again. Likelihood of such will be greater on Monday than today though from Vero Beach north beginning mid afternoon (earlier than today).

 

TUESDAY-BEYOND: This looks like the 'make or break' day, with a 'wet pattern ramification' should things pan out as advertised by the NAM and GFS. First to look at what is being implied. It is suggested that although the vorticity ('energy') with the Deep South low lifts off to the northeast which would otherwise put a damper on rain chances, the area of low pressure to our south becomes joined at the hip with the continental low pressure area in (to my mind) a very questionable fashion. That is why this time frame remains highly uncertain. The result is that deep tropical moisture surges northward across the peninsula. Will this occur? If so, current forecasts being advertised could very well be, well, "blown out of the water". I think what we are hearing now over the media is the underlying need to stick with persistence until certainty in the forecast can be made clearer. So heads up!

 

Perhaps no big changes are in store at all, which totally justifies not crying wolf. On the other hand, should this second transformation occur the flood gates will be wide open to the peninsula for several low pressure disturbances to cross South and Central Florida from Wednesday on (for up to a week). Thus, "Could the Drought End in a BIG Way?!!".

 

Upon perusing through the official Hydrological Prediction Center's website, they seem to be favoring the GFS forecast, as described above (and from which the attached image was obtained). That forecast opens the gates. We could be talking a weekly rainfall total in the several inch amounts from the period of this coming Wednesday through next Wednesday. OR...well, you know what "OR" means. (OR-not). But our waiting period concerning when we'll finally get some respectable rainfall over extreme East Central Florida might soon be over...all this leads to the TROPICS.

 

TROPICS: What forecast mayhem lurks in the minds of models. Models are the forecasters friend as well their worst enemy...so bitter sweet.

I'm disregarding what Matthew was and is now (a remnant low for the most part). However, it's that area combined with much of the Western Caribbean that continues to be on high alert in the forecasting world. Upon viewing all the models at hand this morning, there appears to be developing a consensus that there will not be a major hurricane affecting the state. A lot is contingent upon what happens this week. If the flood gates do indeed open, all the energy down there will arrive over the state 'piece meal' in the form of perhaps a depression...or several un-named low pressures areas of which would contain gobs of atmospheric moisture. On the other hand, that area down there could slowly organize over several days and drift slowly north as a single entity to encompass the entire state for quite some time...which would take a bit longer to arrive but with similar results. Then again, maybe it will never get here until the current trough now developing over the Deep South completely pulls out of the picture...which at this time is essentially undeterminable. I'm not even wasting my breathe with what all the models are depicting. But will go so far as to narrow it down to two scenarios.

 

The first one being what has been just been described (and questioned a bit while doing so) in the preceding paragraphs. The other scenario is that the energy associated with Matthew maintains, morphs, and drifts back offshore...moving around a common center and going nowhere fast. But just to illustrate an increasingly common scenario, at least from over night model runs, whatever goes on down there ends on most models with a large 850mb low near western Cuba by mid-week which has progressed toward the NNE (and South or SE Florida).  Will it ever arrive at all?

 

Now I know why main has hair; it's for pulling.

 

This is liking reading "Gone With the Wind". Will the nonsense ever end, and when it does..will Florida be "GWTW"? Probably not.