Isolated Thunderstorms, Possibly Stronger Interior and West After 4pm

Storm with Pileus Cloud Cap (pie-lee-us) off shore the Indian River County Line early This Sunday Morning

TODAY: Difficult forecast in regard to determining what could happen where...and when...for today. Like yesterday...the surface ridge axis is across Central Florida and has been wavering between right near Port Canaveral toward Titusville. Some models are taking the ridge axis abruptly north toward JAX late today, but so far that has yet to occur. Thus, I'm treating today's forecast based on current trends, but it leaves a lot to be desired due to the great uncertainty. There are some things that are a given


NOW: Sea breeze is remaining very close to the coast if there is one at all north of KSC, where a thunderstorm is now occurring near Titusville. Other showers have been along the Volusia Coast for some hours now. Otherwise, the sea breeze is forming mainly from Martin County and South and up along the Big Bend. Any collision earlier should be way up in North Florida, with another over SW Florida.  Temperatures at 500mb are colder today, but those at 700mb are about the same as yesterday. The air mass has also been moistening up since early today, which the NAM picked up on, considering South Central was relatively 'dry' earlier today.


IN SUMMARY: What it amounts to is that steering is quite light, so light south of the Ridge Axis that gradient scale steering could be overcoming by boundaries of Lake Breezes and outflows, since motion will be so slow, the steering is almost irrelevant, but it will trend toward the NE-NNE.  North of the ridge axis it is also slow but toward the WNW-NW. Same rules apply there though too. Sea breeze should stay closer to the coast North of Brevard..and be latest to penetrate away from that county south of the ridge.  With moisture slowly filling on over South Florida and slowly advecting north, could be some collisions that produce storms with frequent lightning and gusty winds, as well as high rainfall totals in select areas mainly due to the slow storm motion. I drew in a few red areas for potential hot spots for activity today...but most anywhere in the orange might see some lightning near by or at least be able to hear thunder from a not too distant storm. 


NOTE: Yesterday, many lightning strikes were observed and recorded far from actual rainfall. This will likely be the case today as well.

Note that in this image I have not accounted for outflows that might be able to generate more activity out of the eastern most bounds of the green line. it is possible closer to the ridge axis over Osceola County mainly, that activity could present itself more toward Eastern Portions there after 5 or 6pm.


MONDAY: Not much difference from today so far...with the ridge axis near the same location as today, or perhaps a bit further south toward the Indian River County Line. Moisture availability still limited, dependant upon evaporation of the marsh lands during peak heating, then cooling temperatures later in the day which decreases the temperature/dew point spread .


TUESDAY/WEDNESDAY: Best days for the east side of the state to receive some rain almost anywhere north of Ft. Lauderdale in the afternoons. Lots of details to iron out though, especially where the moisture will be located on those days, and where or if the east coast sea breeze will even be able to develop. The area this might not be able to occur is near and north of Daytona Beach...


BEYOND: In question, but the trend has been for an east coast shut down of rain chances other than over SE Florida as the ridge lifts well north..for a bout 4-5 days. The other trend of recent days has been for much better state wide rain chances the entire first week of August.


TROPICS: Does not look like there will be any tropical concerns through the first 10 days of August.

Cruising North on I-95 South of the Titusville/SR 50 Exit