SMUGGY Conditions: Forecast in Question!

Latest conditions at 9AM. It's not too hard to understand...honest. The blue shades shows convective inhibition with lavender colors showing the strongest. That is bad for storms to form. On the other hand, the most unstable air
is located off the East/SE Coast and south of the Panhandle. Sea breezes should advect some
of that unstable air onshore. BUT, note the little blue 'cold front'. Satellite animation
indicates a small outflow boundary could impede into the Cape area in the new two hours...but SHOULD remain weak and not have too much of an impact overall for anyone other than Space Coast residents. Would prohibit rain formation east of US1. NOTE THE COMPLEX COMING DOWN TOWARD ALABAMA.

NOW: Shown above we see two extremely unstable areas of the atmosphere off the Atlantic and Gulf Coast as indicated. The best combination of instability and least inhibition is shown between the two green lines over Central Florida. This would lead one to believe, nothing else considered, that Central Florida in that area would get some storms today. However, note what might be a weak outflow approaching from the NE of the Cape. This might just be elevated clouds. Radar is NOT showing an outflow boundary, but it might be because it is still too far out of reach of the radar to detect.  Earlier models indicated that NE winds would move in, but they have changed their tune in the past hour. What's up with that?


Also of complexity is the winds just above the surface. Earlier indications from the MLB radar were that we would have 15-20 mph SE winds along the coast as soon as 10AM...but in the past two hours those winds just above the ground have become due south as we can see here:

Read the text in yellow for explanation. Believe those South winds will translate to SE once the sea-breeze can form. That is, if we do not get hit by an outflow boundary here at the coast first!

HSD FORECAST DISCUSSION: Firstly, I'm throwing nearly EVERY model out today. Should have done that yesterday as well; hence, there was some question when posting that one. Today is no different.


So what gives? The biggest things that are making for difficult forecasts is (1) the Mesoscale Convective Complexes (MCC) that are diving out of the Deep South and into NE Florida overnight through early morning. These are seldom forecast by models, or if so, the degree to how strong or organized they will be is normally incorrect.  Like yesterday morning, there was a stronger system to pass over NE Florida which sent a huge outflow boundary across the state like a tsunami, and squelched the rain chances, yet forecast models just went along as if it did not exist. Even at the time of the post yesterday which comes from models of 12z (8AM EDT)...the data used to generate those models was corrupted by the outflow boundary. It took until mid-afternoon for the next runs to catch up to the current situation.  And (2) The Smoke. This can separate moisture droplets, which prevents/deters storm formation unless something more organized such as those system affecting NE Florida. However, smoke does not always act as a deterrent depending on the particulates and the elevation at which those exist.


TODAY: So, for today, this forecast on HSD revolves around a combination of the current situation shown in the first image with a bit of model guidance as well as from data from the MLB VAD display pictured above.  


Also of note: On the satellite image I can see what looked to be a lot of mid-upper level clouds diving south toward the most favorable area right now for rain over Central Florida. That SHOULD put the kabash on that rain chance. Also seen is a lot of haze/smoke, likely consumed by the convective complex that went through the JAX area earlier. Trust me, we don't want to be around JAX the past couple of days. It's smokes-ville up there. The other complexity is the issue of the smoke in the air. This can tend to REDUCE rain chances given the right atmospheric conditions.  


So as not to diverge much from official outlets, but include a little flavor: Do believe the best chance of storms today will be from Southwest Florida toward the Tampa Bay area and inland toward Orlando and along I-4 to Daytona. Storms "should" not cross I-95 south of 528, but north of there the possibility does exist given the upper level winds. There is a smaller chance that storms could reach US1 from near Cape Canaveral (Rockledge) south toward Sebastian or Vero Beach. But, given the latest trends of satellite imagery, it  would seem any chance of rain  along the east coast today will be quite small until very late .


The main player today while be the close, Smuggy conditions. Smokey/hazy and humid. Little in the wind department  inland , with highs in the low-mid 90Fs, with the immediate coast between 86-90F before the sea breeze sets in.

Strongest storms over the Panhandle and NE Florida (very late, possibly well after dark). The area in white along North Central Florida toward Ormond Beach/St Augustine might be able to recover from mid/upper level cloud and smoke mix for strong storms later.  The other area to watch will be from Port Charlotte to Tampa Bay today after 5pm. Storms have a tiny chance of forming along the East Coast sea breeze and working with it by gaining strength as they approach the west coast sea breeze.

BEYOND: At this time, Florida is a bit stuck between the drier, hot season vs. the less hot and more muggy/wet season. It has been indicated for quite some time that a big change will be in store toward full on summer like conditions toward next weekend or a few days later.  A temporary shot of moisture from the south could also ride across the state later on Saturday through Monday. But if so, will only be temporary. Otherwise, the other sign that a summer pattern is setting up is that the low level Atlantic Ridge axis should meet up with one over the Gulf in the next 10 days if not sooner. This will set the stage from predominant SE to SW flow in the lower levels depending on where that ridge axis lies across the state for nearly the rest of the summer.


TOMORROW: Uh oh, looks like another Mesoscale Convective Complex might be diving out of Mississippi toward Alabama for tomorrow (see the first image in this post). This would again make tomorrow's forecast difficult. Thus, refraining to harp on a forecast for Saturday based on this uncertainty.