Image: 1pm visible satellite image of Florida and surrounding waters. As we can see, not much in local surface features/boundaries at the surface to decipher with the cold front now over the Florida Straits pulling out to the east and south slowly today through tonight.
The dashed black line is referred to below.
TODAY: Low pressure system east of St. Augustine that formed east of Central Florida overnight continues moving off to the NE-ENE and will pass off the Coast of North Carolina today. Coastal North Carolina is in the 'back-wash' from this low with a cold rain with some sleet mixed in there. Elsewhere, the trailing cold front from that low is located across the Florida Straits north of Cuba with high pressure building east across Texas and into the Northwest Gulf of Mexico.
Most of the moisture over North and Central Florida is confined to the low levels, where as more mid-level moisture can be found south of the dashed black line in the provided picture from space above. It is south of that line that some spotty rain showers can be found through the remainder of the afternoon, with that dashed black line working south of the Florida tip shortly after sunset (meaning an end to the rain chances there as well).
Most model guidance, confirmed by watching satellite animations early this afternoon, confirm that significant atmospheric drying is working south and east from the Panhandle , with a pronounced drying over Central to occur during late afternoon. However, there is still some thin layers of moisture remaining, and dew points will remain elevated this afternoon, so any clearing to occur (in fact, there is a sucker hole of clearing skies about to pass over my location as I type) will be short lived as the sun works on the clearing patches to create more clouds where the shallow (but ample enough moisture still resides) to create more clouds. South Florida from Ft. Pierce south will continue to remain under the more solid cloud deck through sunset, whereas further north and west folks might even see a nice sunset north of and along I-4 with some folks from Brevard County north also getting a peak, perhaps.
Sort of looks to me that 'some' folks over much of Eastern South Central Florida (north of Sebastian) might have one of those days where the first true peak at the sun will occur during its final hour before setting today ....a dime late, dollar short, but reassuring to know the sun does still exist. Might have to look outside at just the right time to see it though.
Otherwise, it's going to be a very cool afternoon with a NNW-NW wind blowing until later this afternoon, backing to NW-WNW later in the day as the final spoke/ trough axis at roughly 2000ft pulls past and the low pressure moves further away from North Carolina. Highs today under the clouds will struggle to break 60F degrees today over North Central Florida (north of the Beach line), with the warmest spots poking above that will be those who catch a thinning in the cloud shield for an appreciable amount of time.
South Central will top out in the low-mid 60s and warmer yet further south, but no good warm temperatures anywhere today due to either dense cloud cover further south, or cold air intrusion further north.
TONIGHT: High pressure will be building across the northern Gulf of Mexico later tonight through Sunday during which time all of our mid-upper level trough axis' will cross through (with the final swipe by being the one around 20,000 feet early Sunday morning). Surface winds overnight during the onset of cold air advection will tend more toward the NNW as temperatures fall into the low-mid 40s North Central to Central this evening, with the A1A corridor not likely to fall below 46F from Port Canaveral and south.
SATURDAY/MONDAY MORNING: Extreme South Florida looks to clear of any remaining clouds early morning with no rain chances. Cool on Saturday and Sunday with highs flirting with the low-mid 60s most areas Central and warmer south. Nice NW-NNW breeze all day under sunny skies. Sunday and Monday morning look the coldest and winds decrease during the late night through early morning hours, with Monday being the coldest on the west side of the state around the west side of Lake Okeechobee northward into Polk and Osceola County as cold air pools there in what looks to be a classic "cold air drainage flow sunrise" with very light to calm wind. They could very well find frost there in parts of Miami's and Tampa's NWS offices areas of responsiblity. Maybe even Melbourne NWS will be on the lookout for frost in their South Central interior area.
Warmest spots on Sunday/Monday morning appear will be along A1A from Port Canaveral to Miami and the Keys where temperatures there could be a good 10-15 degrees warmer than the cold area noted inland (not including the Panhandle area that will have similar morning temperatures). Afternoon highs Sunday similar to that of Saturday but it will feel very nice with a light NNW wind under sunny skies in wind protected areas out of the shade.
MONDAY-EARLY TUESDAY: High pressure in the mid-levels builds east across the Deep South and exits off the U.S. East Coast north of Florida. Circulation around this high on Tuesday morning could very well be the introduction to prevailing easterlies pattern through next weekend and beyond. Still looks like these will be noticed by somewhat of a backdoor cold front as mentioned a few days ago ( or boundary) by a wind surge from the ENE-NE and some cool air noticeable mostly along the entire east coast from Jax to Miami (more so from Port Canaveral to JAX) than further south where they will hardly even notice a change south of Ft. Pierce.
But this 'front', per se, will be the harbinger to the end of cold overnight temperatures heading into Wednesday and beyond as this high pressure moves east and sinks south with the axis running either directly overhead or just north of Central Florida. This will create prolonged period of light east winds under sunny skies with highs in the upper 60s to near 70F from the Port to JAX along A1A, warmer south...especially south of Ft. Pierce where they are closer to the warmer Gulf Stream waters and all areas inland...including the Panhandle.
Morning lows though will be warmer along A1A with lows near 60-63F as opposed to mid 50s away from the coast at sunrise. Under this surface flow regime, upper level winds will be very light with high pressure bubbles in the mid-level readjusting around the SE U.S. with Florida being the epicenter, always in or near the middle of this fair weather regime.
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