Will The Circus Come To Town?

(Image: Enhanced infrared satellite imagery shows a narrow swath of high clouds approaching East Central Florida in association with an upper level low)

SYNOPSIS: Strong surface high pressure in the near term remains the playing card for today's weather. Aloft an upper level low is located near the SE Florida Coast which is moving WSW. A narrow swath of high clouds passed over Brevard County around 9am and has already cleared the immediate area as of 10:30am. Meanwhile, a tropical wave is still evident on surface observations and satellite imagery near the NE tip of Cuba extending toward the SE Bahamas.

TODAY: Dry and very warm to hot, but not as hazy as yesterday. With that said we can go straight to the next topic on the agenda which is the Invest 97-L area. At 11am the Hurricane Center will proclaim this region to be either a Tropical Depression or Storm Bonnie. My impression is that it should be tropical depression 3...we'll see.

TONIGHT/EARLY TOMORROW: No matter what the storm status will be at 11am..any strengthening to occur will be hard-pressed to occur for two reasons. It will not only be competing with wind shear from the aforementioned upper low but also with the unaccommodating landscape of Eastern Cuba. Any circulation now detectable by the first rounds of visible satellite imagery of the day shows the circulation to be hugging the Cuban coastline. During the course of the evening the circulation will follow along the coastline or maybe even flat out over the landmass.

Locally, expect that sometime after midnight the first showers will be approaching the extreme SE Coast of Florida and the Upper Keys. Higher clouds will begin to extend as far north as Volusia County by day break with the chance of rain not far behind. By daybreak the showers could be reaching the Sebastian Inlet area and by noon time be as far north as Central Brevard.

TOMORROW AFTERNOON-EVENING: This is the time frame that it currently appears the worst will occur (under the assumption this systems maintains a WNW track). It should be pointed out that it is quite possible that although the center of activity will be much further south (of Brevard) the strongest wind could actually occur along the coast of Brevard and Indian River County due to the pressure gradient rather than the actual circulation close to any sort of central point further south near the lowest barometric pressures.

As far as rain is concerned it's going to be an all or nothing situation with a very fine line as to where the northern extent of the rain possibilities will exist. Again, based on a current line of assumptions, the cutting off point will be Southern Volusia County. If we put the rain and wind chances together the resultant summation would be intermittent rain showers coming in off the Atlantic which could contain some pretty good wind gusts in the vicinity of each one...outside of the showers the wind would be a steady state around 18-25mph.

SPECIAL NOTE: It cannot be stressed enough that any deviation to the north or south of the projected track (of the depression?) will highly impact how, who, and where active weather will occur. Therefore, any interests should remain abreast of the latest local weather through outlets provided by the National Weather Service.

OVERNIGHT FRIDAY - SATURDAY: The show's over. Moisture will be dog tailing behind the system though...so rain chances will be better than these past few days or pretty much close to what one would normally expect this time of year for afternoon shower/thunderstorm activity favoring the area west of I95.

BEYOND SATURDAY: Normal to just below normal chances of thunderstorms and not quite as hot. Most activity favoring pretty much any where west of I-95. Moisture levels might be enhanced for a brief period, particularly over the west half of the state due to another tropical entity of unnamed nature.