"Black Monday" Severe Weather Reports Filter In, Florida Warm and Breezy

Image: Above is the current depiction of severe weather related storm reports, some preliminary, as of noon Eastern Time on this "Black Monday", February 28th since yesterday. So far there has been 219 total reports of which 153 are wind related, 61 hail related, and 5 tornado related. Not visible underneath the blanket of reports is a few funnel cloud reports. *Note the Tornado Icon near northern Oklahoma (not placed exactly correctly in this image).  Also shown is the official risk areas today in the shaded area through 7AM EST Tuesday morning. The shading in Central Florida is for a risk of general thunder, with higher risk along I-10. Not shown in the image above is flooding related activity.

*Here  is an image from yesterday while activity was just getting underway in the Southern Plains. It shows the risk areas at that time from General to Moderate (in red). Over Kansas we can see (upon enlargement) a storm showing on radar. The little icons of vehicles are storm pursuers who have GPS/software enabled programs running through on-board laptop computers and have them in the "on" (detectable) position. Note how they are clustered near the storm that eventually produced a tornado as indicated in the first image. We can even see the identify of these folks via the inset to the right.


CENTRAL FLORIDA WEATHER TODAY: Breezy and warm. S-SSW winds 15-22 mph, gusts to 28 mph. The cold front is moving through the Deep South as I write. Several Tornado Watch boxes are in place at this time, and during the day these will be dropped with others being issued further to the east (or Severe Thunderstorm Watches) as the front progresses toward the coast. In fact, I'm hearing about tornado warnings in Tennessee at this very moment. So what the heck, here's what radar looks like in Tennessee at the time of these warnings. Note also the storms forming in Southwest Alabama. One of those could go severe (in my opinion).

But in Florida it will be very warm with highs in the low-mid 80s, much like yesterday.  Might be a few spotty upper 80s as well anywhere in the interior. Temperatures right near the coast might only make it to the 79-81F level along either coast. Expect a near side shore component to the wind along the East Coast today, more to onshore south of Ft. Pierce and around Canaveral Bight south toward Indian Harbor Beach. No rain under widely scattered clouds, becoming nearly clear some locations at times.


TONIGHT: The tail end of the rapidly weakening southern end of the storm system will move through Northwest Florida as the main parent low passes by Maine. Some heavy snow is expected up there with totals up to or maybe over 8" with very breezy winds to boot.   You can see the location of where the main low will be by 1pm EST in the image below near Maine. Winds over night will be lighter from the SW-WSW with lows mainly in the low-mid 60s with upper 60s along the coast and some low 70s SE Florida coast.


TUESDAY: Front will enter North Central Florida at day break and pass through that region between the hours of 7AM-1PM. Accompanying the boundary will be some light rain showers and a wind shift to the northwest.

By 1pm the boundary will roughly be located as shown here, or in other words, it will be entering South Central Florida.  At about this point the front will have nearly completely decoupled from any remaining upper level support (if not entirely) and frontolysis will be underway, but there will be ample moisture for the continued chance of rain showers over East Central Florida mainly from 10AM further  through 2pm as one goes south. Do not expect any thunderstorms anywhere south of St. Augustine (although the first graphic showed that will be the case).  The Storm Prediction Center has all of South Central and SE Florida in a chance of thunderstorms tomorrow, however believe that was mainly predicated upon the assumption there would be a sea breeze collision boundary against the predominant SW winds, however it is very unlikely a sea breeze will ever manifest, this no collision and no thunderstorms. Given there would be no other driving factors to contribute to thunderstorms other than weak thermal instability, I'm dropping them from the 'unofficial' post. If there's to be any thunder tomorrow believe it would be near West Palm later in the afternoon.  

As we see in the included image, I've drawn the front in as 'breaking up' with a weak stationary boundary generated, in part, off a thermally induced surface low within the warm waters of the Loop Current in the Gulf.   A portion of this low could simply relocate during/after peak heating to just off the coast of Ft. Lauderdale late in the date as high pressure builds south. 


By Wednesday afternoon whatever remain of either boundary will be just south of the Keys.  Rain showers will be possible as well further south along the east side of the state and over the Keys.


Once all is said and done with this portion of today's forecast post (through tomorrow night), rainfall totals will range from a Trace to perhaps 0.25" (quarter of an inch). Believe any 'true' thunder to occur would be just offshore the east coast of Boyton Beach to Miami. There is a sparse chance of a renegade rain shower from the Cape and South through midnight, Tuesday night though as a tongue of upper level energy will ride over Central Florida possibly re-manifesting a shower at some point.


WEDNESDAY: Winds will shift from NW to ENE by Wednesday morning just about everywhere except extreme South Florida will the boundary will have yet to clear.  Temperatures on Wednesday will be in the mid 70s to near 80F on the west side of the state under partly cloudy skies, possibly mostly cloudy SE Florida where low end rain chances remain, perhaps a better chance SW Florida.


THURSDAY-SATURDAY: Brisk East Winds becoming ESE-SE by Saturday and picking up gradually through the time frame. Highs in the mid-upper 70s and lows in the mid-upper 60s, cooler far inland and west Florida.


NEXT BEST CHANCE OF RAIN: Perhaps Saturday, but more likely Sunday sometime. Thunder might be included in this time frame as well.  But per the long range run of the GFS model, the next couple of fronts to impact Florida will do so in similar fashion as the one tomorrow will, with the state getting only the remnant sloppy seconds (at best) of anything of "dynamic" nature. But still watching the weekend time frame  closely from something "...more than".