Today Could Be The Day We Get Needed Storms

NOW: Sea breeze has become established along the very immediate coast early this afternoon from Cape Canaveral south but has apparently made little inland progress. The latest KSC sounding just came in and depicts some form a west to east component at all levels of the atmosphere. Additionally, it is very moist with a PWAT above 2.20". Some showers and storms have formed west of Ocala and thunder is audible from the reporting station in Daytona with a shower actually moving off the coast into the Atlantic. Inland temperatures are climbing into the mid 90s. Radar trend is showing increasing shower and thunderstorm activity well off to the NNW-NW in North Central Florida. There is also some isolated activity near West Palm where it appears there has been a Lake Okeechobee-Sea Breeze collision already.

TODAY: Earlier this morning the sounding wasn't quite as 'hopeful' for the east coast of Brevard as far as rain prospects...so given this last and latest piece of info the trend has been favoring this area more for a shower or storm today...most likely the north half of the county. The atmosphere is juicy and upper level temps have dropped a degree or two at 700mb-500mb as one goes up. Also in our favor COULD be a boundary laid out due to outflow from yesterdays activity that was hefty and numerous across the state near Gainesville to Ocala. Can't find a boundary laid out specifically though...just a suspicion.

With the latest sounding information...and latest model runs...hard to come down to specifics, but can come up with a few assessments. That being...east coast sea breeze and slightly cooler air aloft combined with a juicy air mass with plentiful heating inland could boost the thunderstorm coverage activity and intensity this afternoon in the 'plentiful' category across the N. 1/3 of the state...the southern extent being from near KSC west to Orlando-Tampa Bay. Current activity to the north seems to be drifting toward the SE slowly along the eastern fringe of high pressure centered near East Central Texas.

In brief, best chances for the immediate coast to get a storm today...particularly from Melbourne Beach north...and more likely from Oak Hill north. Titusville (which is not on the ocean though) appears to be in the cahoots for a storm given the current steering flow and liklihood of the sea breeze not penetrating much further west of I-95 up that way.

MONDAY: At time, looks like Monday could be back to conditions similar to Saturday but with more moisture throughout the atmosphere. If that is the case, then inland locations from Okeechobee along the spine of the state and through Orlando metro would again be most favored (as is typical)....give or take 30-40 miles either side of that line. Also, the east coast sea breeze might be more active shortly after noon time as it begins to impinge on the inland intracoastal. Storm motion will start to trend for southerly toward the WSW-SW late in the day.

TUESDAY-THURSDAY: Probably dry east of US1 or I95 as a more Easterly and somewhat drier component steering current becomes established. Back to Tampa to Ft Myers for the big late afternoon storms.

TOWARD THE WEEKEND: All eyes on the Tropics which by this might be tropical storm Colin (at least). We'll be hearing a lot about this yet to develop system in coming days...but current forecast tracks are very interesting concerning Florida interests at this time.