Near Record Warmth, Windy - Possible Strong Storm Central Late This Afternoon

Images: 1) Current quick and dirty surface front positions overlaid with colorized temperatures depictions. Could be heading toward tying or breaking some record high temps for the date today...again! (2) Latest SPC outlook for today showing the area which I''m in full agreement with for possible strong storms, mainly along an east bound broken line of showers and some storms from 3pm -7pm (3) Latest satellite image (4) Current radar as of 1:50pm

CURRENT: Boundary that was over South Florida yesterday began go move north at 8AM rapidly and cleared Brevard County to the north around noon time. It has run into a wedge of very cool high pressure extending south from the Appalachians into North Florida and is unlikely to get any further north.

Warm and windy this afternoon. Last hour the warmest reporting locations were West Palm Beach at 86F and Melbourne at 85F with SW winds gusting to just over 30mph. However, gusts were approaching 40mph in response to a 925mb speed max just pushing on shore. These winds could spread east and across the zone shown in the second image across Central Florida later this afternoon, accompanied by mid level winds of up to 50 mph in a narrow sliver along the Beach Line.

Expect we could see those temperatures noted above to go up at least another two degrees during the next hour or so since we haven't quite reached peak heating yet, which means Melbourne could well be on the way to breaking the record high temperature for the date, or tying it. Not so sure about West Palm Beach though.

Meanwhile we see a weak surface low west of Tampa and another well east of St. Augustine. The RUC model analyzed a low right over Central Florida, but believe that is more of a thermally induced 'mess-up' and not real.

TODAY-TONIGHT: Continued very warm and breezy through the remainder of the afternoon with plentiful sunshine. Awesome! The surface low in the Gulf will begin to kick ENE later this afternoon and take a trek roughly from North Tampa Bay to just south of Daytona Beach in a weakened state (after having crossed the cooler Gulf Shelf waters away from the warmer Loop Current). Looks like areas south of the warm front will remain dry until the low pressure begins to punch east toward the Florida west coast in response to the mid-level trough which is still further west of the surface features, whereas the area north of the warm front will continue in the rains all day into tonight other than over toward the east side of the state where upper level support is lacking early this afternoon and it is merely cloudy.

In the 3-4pm time frame the low begins to move east, weakens a bit away from the Loop Current. Additionally, the line of convection current shown (and there is a lot of lightning out there too in activity not been shown in the radar image further to the SSW) will move east. The line of showers and possible thunder storms will progress eastward through the last afternoon and appears will be near and clearing the east side of the state between 5:00pm - 8:00pm, but the activity is just starting to enter East Central Florida as I type.

Wouldn't be surprised to hear a severe thunderstorm warning or even a few with the line (in fact, a tornado warning was just issued for far NW Volusia County). That comes a bit of a surprise.

The main impact from those areas that get the rain will be strong wind gusts in and just prior to onset of rain of 40-55mph, especially toward the east 1/2 of the state for North 1/2 of Osceola County, Orange County, Seminole County, Southern Lake County , the North 1/3 of Brevard County and all of Volusia County as the convective band moves through, but do note the outlined area in the graphic above pointed out by the Storm Prediction Center (which matches closed with my line of thinking). This is a worst case scenario, as I am considering just how long the line will hold out the further east it gets. We could end up with the southern extent of any showers at all just brushing Port Canaveral with no activity other than rain spatter further south of 520.

But at time, rain showers, and even some thunder looks remotely possible as far south as Vero Beach on the east side and all of Osceola County.

TONIGHT/EARLY THURSDAY: Front clears the states with possible some lingering rain showers until about 3AM. Cooler and very pleasant through Wednesday with lows in the mid-upper 40s north to upper 40s lower 50s further south and highs in the 60s to low 70s further south.