Earlier Coastal Rain Chance - Later Well Inland

SYNOPSIS: Two dominating features on the map this morning. The biggest player is strong high pressure both at the surface and aloft centered over the Atlantic, the ridge of which is primarily located East-West across N. Florida. The second feature is a TUTT low approaching extreme SE Florida. At the surface an inverted trough most pronounceable extends from Central Cuba northward toward the Ft. Lauderdale-West Palm Beach area...paralleling the coast up to Brevard...then arcing NE off the coast from the Cape and into the Atlantic.

TODAY: The aforementioned inverted trough will be passing through during the pre-noon hours and damping out as it does so. Surface moisture flux divergent values are noted very negative all along the coast where the trough is located, and thus fairly fast moving scrappy cumulus are noted in Canaveral at this time. Morning sounding came in less than impressive in the moisture category above 5000 feet- i.e., most of it is trapped below 850mb (and hence the scrappy clouds). Within the drier air aloft resides a 10+ C degrees 700mb level temperature. SAL (dusty/dry) mid-upper level air resides there. Radar is rain free.

All things now having been said and done, despite the presence of strong divergent values noted and low level moisture...I'm tempted to include very samll rain chances right along all of the Florida East Coast...but believe that possibility will reside either far south from West Palm south closer to the TUTT low where greater moisture and covergence resides, and further North for Volusia and Flagler Counties where the affects of the SAL are less pronounced. It's Brevard and Indian River that will have the least chance of coastal rain showers. One thing worth noting though is that regardless of where the showers are...wind gusts could be quite hefty within those that do occur (even if they are not thunderstorms!). Reasoning behind why that is the case will be reserved for a later discussion, since the opportunities for such conditions to exist again will occur many more times through September.

Best chance of storms today for Florida in general will be around the southern tip of the state and up the west half, particularly mid-late afternoon over parts of Hillsborough/Hernando/Western Polk/Western Lake Counties which will continue into the early evening. The immediate coast of Central Florida will likely experience no rain whatsoever after 1pm.