Isolated Thunderstorms Becoming Scattered / Strong-Pulse Severe After 3:30pm

NOW AT 11AM: West Coast sea-breeze in NW Florida is getting a start right ahead of a mid-upper level trough axis and can be seen by a cumulus cloud line on satellite imagery. Some of a Big Lake breeze is in the process over South Florida. Overall low to mid level steering before noon is from the WSW across Central and strongest over North Central and North Florida (green arrows/vectors). The upper level trough will sink slowly south through tomorrow morning. The prevalent smoke is looming off the east coast...and might move back on shore the coast with the sea breeze..but this does not appear likely this hour.

NOW: Above image shows the current situation with captions. The most unstable atmosphere this hour  is located all over South Florida and the adjacent waters. It is also here that the least amount of inhibition is in place.  Along the East Coast...especially all around the Space Center toward Melbourne the atmosphere is very stable.  Things will change though in the next 2 hours but rain here, if any, is still a long time coming.

TODAY: Using a blend of current situation and model trends since early this morning, which by the way were All Over The Place earlier.  Yesterday's convection (storms) left chaos not only over Florida but other parts of the country as well. Thus, today's and tomorrow's forecast is very tricky and subject to grave and dire inaccuracies. However, given the current situation at hand and the trend:

FLAILING ARMS FORECAST (WITH LIKELY FACE PALMS): Showers and some thunderstorms will begin along both the SW and SE Coasts west of the interstates and around Lake Okeechobee. Some of this activity could flirt with I-95 in Central to Northern Palm Beach County and just inland from Naples. Outflows from these storms could generate even more storms over the Everglades which can become strong after 2pm. Some areas along the east coast might end up with light rain even at the beaches with mid-upper level cloudiness/anvil rain near West Palm Beach or just south of there. Storms will work up the East Coast sea breeze toward South Central and Central Florida.

MEANWHILE: Quite warm today Central with highs in the mid-90Fs in the interior, and maybe some upper 90Fs toward Orlando (97F?). East Coast Central/North Central might have highs in the lower 90Fs with a delayed sea breeze sometime between 1-2pm.  As the sea breeze develops showers and some thunder can form as it tries to press inland.  Meanwhile, showers will form along the developing west coast sea breeze as well with the strongest storms east of the Big Bend toward Gainesville/Ocala later. Showers could try to form along the intracoastal over East Central after 1pm as well as along the West Coast seabreeze as it presses east toward JAX-Ormond Beach-Daytona.

MID-LATE AFTERNOON: Chaos in the forecast realm. Just about anything goes as models do not pick up with what is to occur in the lower levels once activity gets going and collapses, sending wind boundaries out in every which diretion and disturbing the diurnal small scale wind cycle..  So in resorting to the mid level winds and temperatures...

NORTHWEST-EAST 1/2 of  NORTH CENTRAL: Strong/Severe winds (possible) and non-severe sized hail is most likely to occur over parts of North Central/North East Florida much like yesterday.  Storms should be able to clear the coast from near or just north of Daytona Beach toward Ormond Beach, much like yesterday.

CENTRAL: Most complex situation indeed for the Beachline Zone  and the I-4 intersection area toward  Eastern Hillsborough/Tampa, Polk, and Osceola Counties...then east as well into Brevard/Indian River counties.  Sea breeze is expected (based on past days and as history tells us), to really pick up along the intracoastal after 4pm. If storms try to arrive to the beach after 3:30pm they might never be able to survive the journey across the water ways where the wind will be strongest from the SSE by 5-6pm.  On the other hand, if a strong storm (is strong enough)...it could reach the coast from  Melbourne Beach or just south of there and north to Cape Canaveral with a big punch. At this time, and again, as history tells me, this 'probably' will not be the case, but it is possible. Do expect that these areas could at least see some light rain today before all is said and done. One can hope.

Otherwise, strong to pulse severe could occur over Eastern Polk/anywhere Osceola/Orange/Seminole Counties..eventually back into Lake County toward Ocala. 

BACK SOUTH: Outflows from activity over Central/South Central and changing synoptic scale wind fields after 6pm could re-ignite some storms toward Boynton Beach//Miami Metro late toward 7-8pm..maybe later. That is a Big "If"...but cannot be discounted.

MOST RAINFALL (NOT NECESSARILY CONTAINING LIGHTNING TODAY?): Some rain areas could become nearly stationary during the early evening and re-ignite from light to moderate rain over the interior anywhere from Osceola/Orange/Seminole/Volusia/or maybe even Brevard west of I-95, as well as over the Everglades area.

SUNDAY: Could be another day not unlike today. But just as has been the case the past several days..there will likely be one or more organized thunderstorm clusters trying to enter the Deep South in the next 24 hours which would again make the forecast by tomorrow morning totally different from how it appears it would be right now for Florida. As a prelim...things look much the same tomorrow, with some big storms possible over South Florida under the assumption that energy with the 500mb trough will continue southward overnight tonight.