Front on Schedule: Early Afternoon Passage, Plunge into Darkness

"Cold Front Rolling in on Schedule" 

TODAY: Only brief post necessary with a few cosmetic touch ups. Latest visible satellite animations and isotherm analysis shows the leading edge of the frontal zone honing in on and through North Central Florida this hour to be entering very close to a Cape Canaveral toward South Tampa bay line at 1pm, with the rope cloud along the front proper about 1 hour behind that (blue line below). The frontal zone will take a good 3 hours to truly complete its first stage of passage, the second stage will be the drying out phase and gradual clearing.

Therefore, expect a good 10F- 15F degree temperature drop in the first hour of  passage, then leveling off for another dip toward dark..but the greater dip will not be well until after 1AM tomorrow morning.

Frontal zone at 12:30PM EST Lays Across Central Florida,
Purple Indicates the much drier air

Interior Central will get near the 30-35F mark, with the immediate beaches east of US1 if not only the outer most barrier Islands south of the Cape never fully realizing the driest of air due to surrounding water influence which has not really cooled much this season. Mixing will create chilling conditions with the wind though, with wind  chills near  Breezy Frozen or "Brozen Conditions" by sunrise all areas, truly so inland north of Orlando and near it further south. The warmest zones will be east of the river ways though with a low from Canaveral and South AT the beaches in the 37-42F range (guessing at best though).. colder inland. Historically, very windy cold onsets have fairly uniform temperature spreads latitudinally speaking, but with the warmer water still this time of year, might see more of a spread than would normally be expected. Chance we'll see some temperature forecast busts this go around, better to play it safe than sorry.

TUESDAY: Low temperatures as noted with Freeze Warnings and Watches in place. Precautionary measures to be taken as advertised  on media outlets with special attention to pets and plants and extremities. Best way to dress in such conditions is layers with a wind resistant outer layer. Sky condition does not appear will be quite as bad as suppositioned in previous posts with mainly a thinner veil of high clouds, possibly resulting in filtered sun light with no low clouds during the day. 

Possible record low max temperatures will be set,  but not expecting to see any new low temperature records this go around. The cold spell 4 years ago was colder UNLESS we are in for a surprise temperature drop guidance is not showing.

WEDNESDAY: The warmest temperature on Tuesday at the immediate beaches will occur just before midnight Tuesday night, with slow warming through the night after a daytime high around 48F from the Cape and North, 50Fs further south. Wednesday sunrise might see a morning low near 58F along A1A but still much cooler the further west one is located especially from West side of Orlando down toward Sarasota or Punta Gorda. The immediate east coast will have already begun to warm up and won't see cold weather again for nearly a week. Highs Wednesday in the mid 60Fs then continued warming through Thursday into the Weekend. 

THURSDAY: Continued warming as the lower portions of the front returns to Central Florida and finally undergoes complete frontalysis and is absorbed into high pressure as another trough approaches. Chance of showers looks to be in the 40% range for now almost anytime after 10AM Thursday, but just exactly where is highly uncertain other than more likely south of I-4 . 

Possibly a record high might be in the offing for either Saturday or Sunday afternoons somewhere over the South Half of the state with highs into the low-mid 80Fs possible. hardly worth bothering breaking the mitts, scarves, mukluks and firewood out for this one.