Soups On!

Image: Towering Clouds Indicative of a waterspout formation failed to produce anything but rain shortly before noon today (Cape Canaveral)

 

RECAP: Big storms yesterday for East Central Florida with widespread rains, some light and some heavier, almost every where for Central and South Central Florida. Looked like a normally active summer day for the most part, one of which we've not had witness to all summer. No doubt, the outflow boundary in the early morning from convection offshore the Cape which was mentioned yesterday was a key player. It remained stationary along the western Brevard County line all day. Meanwhile, lower thickness values which had retreated north slipped back south again as was presumed might happen. As such, the bigger storms went up along the leading edge of this cooler air aloft near SE Volusia County then rapidly fired down the  combined sea breeze/outflow boundary  line of Brevard then further south along the sea breeze along the East Coast into Martin County. Further toward Ft. Pierce another merger occurred between the Lake Okeechobee breeze and sea breeze boundaries. All activity was eventually caught up in the prevailing WSW winds aloft and was pushed slowly offshore during the course of the evening toward midnight. Lots of lightning near the Brevard/Orange county line, not to discount some other locales around the state as well.

 

SYNOPSIS: Tropical Storm Hermine in the extreme SW Gulf of Mexico off the Mexican coast can be see on satellite imagery. Some sort of boundary runs north from the system then east across the Gulf of Mexico to Tampa then across the state to the Cape. Winds aloft are very light aloft from the west while right and at the surface then are being affected by local geographic features. It appears there might be a weak low over Okeechobee County and another well offshore ENE of the Cape. The stationary front that was to our north appears to be retreating north into Central Georgia as a surface ridge builds north ward near the southern shore of the Lake. All features are very weak though other than Hermine. Also of note is a large TUTT low northwest of Puerto Rico. Circulation around this system is clearly evident as it pushes west toward the Bahamas.

 

TODAY: Tough call! Latest 11am KSC sounding shows a very soupy atmosphere with PWAT up to 2.15". 500mb temperature aloft at about -7.1C and 700mb temperature around +7mb. About the same as last night. What can I say, there's lots of moisture and cooler air aloft than last week and the weeks before, but there's also a lot of clouds. However, some areas are receiving lots-o- sunshine (heating). Storms/showers are popping just about anywhere at this time with all the moisture around and various mesoscale boundaries being established near lakes and waterways. Outflows from these boundaries, including one just about to reach the Cape from activity well offshore will interact and produce general chaos as far as defining a definitive area for where rains are most likely. Leaving it to say, by this evening somebody could get really dumped on, whereas other areas will remain totally dry.

 

Normally, we'd expect that once the sea breeze sets up which has yet to occur in truth at 1pm north of West Palm Beach (about where the ridge axis further south is located). This has yet to occur north of Ft Pierce but expect with the approaching boundary winds will become more easterly near the Cape shortly. Storm motions will be very slow. Pretty much everything that was said yesterday applies to today. Interestingly though, as of now convective showers seem to have having an affinity to developing over East Brevard County locally speaking. In fact, just now as I type I heard thunder!

I'd say potential funnel cloud or waterspout formation is not completely out of the question.

 

TOMORROW: I'm leaving this up for later model runs, namely because there is no agreement amongst them. They haven't handled Hermine well AT ALL! Yesterday, the NAM was showing it to be practically a hurricane, now today it shows it only as a minimal storm, if even. Which is just the inverse of what is occurring. Also, the NAM is again showing that big rains could be in store for the East coast sometime tomorrow or Wednesday from the Cape to Miami, and even forms a low right over the Cape in the process. The GFS shows no such development. The GFS also does not handle Hermine well at all.

 

BEYOND TOMORROW: More complications. (Oops..MORE THUNDER just now). The affects of easterly flow by Thursday might not be as long lived as previously thought, once another front crosses the Mississippi River and gets east of it. The ridge could sink as far south as Central Florida rather than remain north of there...of even further south. This would have a big impact for South and Central Florida late Thursday into the weekend time frame.

 

IN SUMMARY: Don't believe everything you hear in the next two days via media. I noticed our local newspaper in the weather section didn't even show Hermine at all..not even as a little red low on the map.