Good Riddance Cold Weather

(Image depicts expected frontal positions - courtesy of the NAM - annotations are mine)

The highlight for today already is that the temperature never fell below 50 degrees on my porch last night; however, it appears that pretty much everyone else fell at least into the mid-40s so this was the exception and definitely not the rule. Regardless, everyone will be catching up to being within equi-range by mid-morning after full sunshine provides ample heating across all of Central Florida.

Today: Except the sky to be partly cloudy with occasionally a thin, but barely worth noting, overcast. For the most part, unless one looks up to notice it won't make a difference because what the big news for the day is will be the temperature. Don't think we'll quite see 70 degrees yet, but with the way it's been lately upper 60s will fit the bill just fine. I'll probably change costume and resume wearing shorts again by noontime, as we won't be seeing it get appreciably cooler for quite some time. Good bye long, uncomfortable long pants! No rain chance.

Friday: This day will be a good 5-10 degrees warmer for everyone once again as winds will have attained their onshore component all day Thursday and through the night. ISince this morning could make it to only 51 here --that might be indicative of how warm it could be as far west as Merritt Island Friday morning. Further west near US-1 you'll probably still see mid-upper 40s but only during the late night to very early morning hours. Sky cover will again be partly cloudy with occasional cloudy spurts of little impact nature. Chances for a sprinkle by late in the day are remote, but thought I'd throw them in for good measure - but only a sprinkle.

Saturday: The warmest day of our new found friend (do you realize we've been well below normal temperature wise since the New Year began:?). And my friend, your warmth is ever so welcomed even if it means there could be more clouds. At this point, who cares? The devil's in the cold air, and I say bury him with a hatchet and pack the dirt down hard. Throw in a black thorned rose for good measure. R.I.P.

Things become a little more problematic as we head into the mid-late afternoon hours of Saturday. The wind by this time will be veering from SE toward the SSW and increasing...and oh how sweet that will be. No longer coming off the ocean the warm air will really be getting advected across all locales -- blow a kiss and raise the arms in praise. I'm smiling now.

The problem though, is that rain chances will be ever so increasing but still not a widespread onslaught. As shown by the NAM depicted forecast for 7pm Saturday night, a prefrontal trough will be approaching Tampa Bay , and I'd expect that a very rapidly developing line of rain showers with perhaps some embedded thunder will be accompanying that line accordingly. This is where the real rain chances begin. It must be noted that timing of this system has been a major thorn-in-the-side since the get go, so if anything changes as far as timing goes I'd expect this to occur even later (rather than sooner) as shown All in all though, by 10-midnight Saturday night, at this point, all of Central Florida should be under rain at some level or another of intensity. As far as severe weather goes - - despite how cool looking this system will be and with all that's coming together to formulate it -- I don't think there will be any at this point. That can always change (just remember this is still nearly 3 days away). Naturally, if things look more appreciably favorable for more intense weather mention of that will be made here along with your widely available media outlets. In other words, I'm not hanging up the hat yet on that possibility.

Sunday: Again, assuming the timing of this thing is close to what is being thought for this writing (can't storm systems get a clock or something -- don't they know we have schedules to meet and things to do?) rain will continue until about noon time. But get this, no big temperature drop at all. We'll remain comfortable by the standards of this time of year. Now, if it were summer right now we'd be freezing under these same conditions (a good 20 degrees colder than what we see in July). Kind of hard to imagine.

Monday and points on: Dry with temperatures remaining very close to seasonal norms, meaning basically low of 50 and high of 70. The coast will be quite a bit warmer overnight into the early mornings, whereas from Merritt Island and points west the afternoons will be appreciably warmer than the coast. It all comes out even in the wash. There will be yet another storm system developing and approaching the area by late in the week but for real? That is beyond the scope of my crystal ball. Pass the Windex.