From Light Rain to Near Severe Storms Possible Over Florida Today

IMAGE: This image cover all the bases for today for where rain COULD occur. Note that the area in light blue and lavender are highly conditional upon the East Coast sea-breeze and which sea-breeze (East vs. West) prevails and/or if either one does.
Otherwise, The area in red seems to be where the best chance of stronger storms could occur. See the text portion below for why this day is complicated and why nothing is really measuring up. 

RECAP: A small mesoscale convective complex (MCC) formed late yesterday and severe weather occurred mostly in the areas they were thought most likely too; however, not in the way that they did. Parts of South Central Florida are still recovering from that system whereas North Central has almost fully recovered.
The most unstable and uncapped atmosphere is over South Florida which was never impacted by the system at all. As such, convection is already getting underway at this area near the coast along the East Coast sea-breeze.

TODAY: Firstly, please note that today's outlook is a little ambiguous. The synoptic scale alignment of features only falls together on the big scale over South Florida for storms today, which are already beginning there. Further north, another weak disturbance may run down long the East Coast later this afternoon. As this disturbance runs down the coast showers, then thunderstorms, and finally some thunderstorms that are strong could develop after 6pm toward after dark as far north as Orlando in the interior, uh..perhaps.

Second: The east coast sea breeze has yet to being, and at this hour yesterday it had already started. Be willing to bet that by the time I hit "send" it will be here at the beaches as well though. Just exactly how close to the coast (how far inland it manages to go) will be a big determinant for whether the area east of I-95 even sees storms today at all north of Vero Beach.The west coast sea breeze is already visibly moving eastward slowly.  Given the overall synoptic scale set up, and past history, dictates (in my mind only), that the east coast sea breeze will gain momentum after 4pm...but not so sure about how much momentum it will actually attain.  Model surface wind fields actually do not show it to strengthen much..and in fact weaken it to non-existent suspiciously by 7 or 8pm.  This could allow activity to reach the east coast in the purple areas after 7-8pm, that is, if there is any at all to head that way.

Otherwise, on the lower levels of the atmosphere little has changed since yesterday; it is the mid-levels that are driving the confusion, especially north of the Beachline. It may be that by the time all is said and done that even North Central Florida will be a run of the mill, standard early summer day with some isolated thunder or showers later as well...so I've thrown in the light blue area for extra measure. Some spots there could also see mid-late afternoon showers and maybe some thunder as well ..but whether it can actually reach the beach is debatable to pretty assured it will not.  Steering winds are generally going to be from the NW -N by later in the day from The BeachLine and South ..but they may not be strong enough to actually dictate storm motion. Outflow boundaries and propagation along them are the most likely driver for what direction storms will move over the inland areas.   


Lastly, the area over South Central Florida, especially toward the coast toward Vero Beach is the most stable region as of this moment. Thus, believe any shower activity of any noteworthiness other than maybe some renegade lightning  will hold off until prime time for storms (after 5pm).

SOUTH FLORIDA: Most obvious location for something to get going. In fact, it already has begun. BUT, this puts another fly in the ointment. Will all of this activity be over with by 5pm or have less coverage earlier and hold off until later? It would stand to reason so far that any time after 2PM to 6PM this area could have some strong/severe storms as noted in the red bounds; although, perhaps I should have included only the south half of that red area for earlier and further north much later.


Here's is the original graphic that I had come up with just the previous hour before the one above:

The biggest difference was that the area north of the Beachline was left out for any kind of thunder whatsoever today. But upon watching trends since 7AM...it's hard not to throw an isolated chance of something up there to see if it sticks. If it doesn't, the folks get to enjoy a drier day from start to finish. But those areas should at least see some showers around.