Some Respectable Storms Possible Today South Central/South Florida??

Some possible areas to watch today. Note the question marks (?)!!
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RECAP: There  was a strong storm or two down in far SE Florida yesterday which quickly gasped along the SE Coast over Key Biscayne/Virginia Key area when all was said and done. Some small hail was observed and stronger winds gusts were reported. Nothing too unusual for a strong near summer like thunderstorm in Florida. The season in South Florida is arriving in the next few weeks.


TODAY: Today is different from the get go from yesterday. The old frontal boundary seems to be decaying as a mid level ridge builds in from the east as shown by the yellow lightning bolts drawn in the figure above.  The area that gets rain north of the ridge will see rains hardly moving, as will the area further north.  The area to the south should push east and fizzle over Eastern Collier County with the setting sun.


Highest instability is forecast to exist from near Fr Lauderdale northward and up to Cape Canaveral by sunset is one factor to consider.  The highest CAPE is actually near Indian River County by early afternoon...I think this is because the area further south 'should' get an earlier start. An area of mid-level helicity over far Southern Osceola County near YeeHaw Juncton is being shown by Local Data Integration, but I do not have much faith in this.  


The other is associated with what appears could be a disturbance in the 250mb jet stream level winds per water vapor and infrared satellite imagery animations over the SE Gulf of Mexico progressing east.

It looks like the situation for far SE Florida will be a bit different today. Activity should build very close to the Metro Area of Miami and begin to push west south of the ridge axis shown above into the Everglades. Believe this will occur later in the afternoon toward 4pm. This activity could be enhanced much more west of Miami over the Everglades, particularly if that anomaly in the Gulf  continues east. Timing places it south of Lake Okeechobee between 4:30-6pm.


Further north, the area near the Martin County/Palm Beach County has the greatest overall lapse rates as depicted in the image above...and is also the most moist throughout the atmosphere. Believe this area will be the first to go today...and could send an outflow boundary south to that area in the Everglades which would enhance that activity. 


Further north toward Okeechobee/South Osceola County will be closest to the High Convective Available Potenial Energy, or rather just downstream of it.  I'm expecting that...should activity get started sooner over the area mentioned above (Martin/Palm Beach), it's also possible an outflow boundary will eject into this area and stack up against the inhibition further to the west.  This area is highly questionable as noted above. All these areas are also forecast to be closes to lowest lifting condensation levels which will reside east of I-95 from Brevard - Broward County. The area over the ever Glades is never forecast to have low LCLs like those other areas, so it will be interesting to see what happens there.  This could merely aid in late development..


The LCL is a good approximation of the height of the cloud base which will be observed  when air is lifted mechanically from the surface to the cloud base (e.g., due to convergence of airmasses), which in this case in the area north of Lake O would be the east coast / west coast sea breezes...albeit, weak.


In order of appearances would be 1) Martin/Palm Beach ; 2) S. Osceola/O County 3) Miami show after 5pm, with earlier activity in limbo...tooling around until late in the day for the real activity there. Possible lots of 'false alerts'.


NOTE: Our local forecast is not calling for activity today in Martin County or S. Osceola County, but I did notice that MIA is referring to more strong storms today.  


CONCERNS: Warm air capping just about cumulus cloud tops especially north of Lake Okeechoibee toward Ft. Pierce Will it be able to break through?  


So far I think it will, but this is not a given...but latest RUC guidance at 8am is breaking out precipitation in all of these areas, which by the way are not set in stone and could shift around. It does not look as if activity today will be as isolated today ...so instead of the 20% of what I'd call yesterday it could be 30-35%.  Strongest activity could drop more small hail, with some gusty sub-severe strength winds later in the afternoon over the Glades. Activity could creep in to the far South Brevard County area as well prior to 4pm but will be struggling with the eastward steering currents against the SE Seabreeze in a narrow corridor...likely getting strangled.