Warm, Hazy, and Primarily Dry in the Rain Department

Essentially no changes in the line of thinking from yesterday's rambling. The low pressure system that was near Bermuda several days ago continued to move WSW as was noted previously and is now rotating just off the North Carolina coast to the north of Cape Hatteras. The circulation is readily apparent both aloft and at the surface via every form of satellite imagery and surface observations. A cold front extends NNE to SSW from NE Ohio, through Western Kentucky and Tennessee, and south into Central Mississippi. Ahead of this front high pressure at the mid-levels is spread across all of the northern Gulf from Eastern Texas eastward across all of North Florida. Central Florida is under descendant motion around the southern periphery of this high pressure bubble for the day.

At first appearances it seemed that things would be fairly primed for storms today, or at least headed in the right direction for them by around sunset, given the current stability indices and the fact that the PWAT level has gone up from yesterday's low value of 0.86" up to 1.56" as of noon time. But a lot of that moisture is trapped below the mid-level ridge axis mentioned above (which is visually apparent by the hazy/dull look to the sky). Additionally, the convective temperature is around 99F which simply is not going to happen. The presence of this high pressure is even more apparent across North Florida where the heat is on and the air is even drier (thank goodness for small miracles otherwise the heat indices - the apparent temperature - would be at the meltdown level up by Jacksonville as if 97 degrees alone isn't bad enough).

TODAY: After a morning land breeze (from the west)...the A1A corridor is now working on a sea breeze with winds from the ENE north of the Cape (Oak Hill) and ESE-SE winds south of the tip of the Cape (Cape Canaveral southward). Expect these 'cooling' winds to maybe make it as far west as Orlando by early evening. Inland afternoon temperatures will be in mid-90s and probably feel pretty darned uncomfortable with little in the breezy category to provide evaporational cooling from the sweat glands. This is the kind of day that Wet-n-Wild was made for. About the only thing to look for is if some rain showers go up in Northern Osceola County to very near Orlando and maybe western Seminole County region within an hour or two of sunset. Maybe those folks will luck out. Maybe not.

TOMORROW: The atmosphere still has some work to do to recover to operable levels...but the antidote won't be arriving by tomorrow afternoon; thus, we'll sit yet another day in the waiting room and pray for the best for Sunday. In other words it will be much like today. About the only difference is that at this time I think tomorrow will be the warmest (might as well say "hottest") day of the weekend and upcoming week for our land-locked neighbors.

SUNDAY/MONDAY: The cold front will work it's way into the southern Deep South and begin to align in an east-west orientation as it lines up along the remaining ridge over Florida, which by the way will also be pushing down into extreme South Florida. Looks like what is left of the front will grind to a halt across Southern Georgia and Alabama while the ridge axis will line up across the state from roughly Miami to Naples with its western extent well out toward the central Gulf, at least initially. Such placement of the ridge (assuming this is what will occur) does not exactly place us in a favorable position to receive a moisture feed from the tropics to juice up the atmosphere. Regardless though, the subsidence (descending motion) should abate and place us in at least neutral to positive relative upward vertical motion. Additionally, some pockets of moisture will gradual sneak in during the course of Sunday and Monday which through virtue of the nature of the Florida Peninsula and its sea breeze/Lake breeze collision reputation will finally take the storm gods off the gurney.

But back to full-bore climatologically normal levels of liveliness? At this time it's not looking likely...not until the ebb and flow of global atmospheric eddies makes some additional adjustments. They'll come...eventually...but for goodness sake "Will storm season ever arrive in earnest this year?!".