Sky Sanctums

SEE CAPTIONS: Ridge axis across Central Florida at 1pm with mostly cloudy skies
Big change overnight in the synoptic scale pattern due to large outflows from storms over the Carolinas Late Yesterday has disrupted the recent weather pattern for today. Tomorrow might be a recovery day as well.

TODAY: Brief post for today given the tremendous uncertainty.  Virtually every model was'disrupted' overnight due to what I believe was a storm complex over the Carolinas yesterday. Florida was first affected by outflows early this morning and is still trying to recover. However, the atmosphere inland is becoming quite unstable with pretty steep low level lapse rates developing per the SPC Mesoscale Analyis Page. (small scale) 


In a broad sense, the state today is divided vastly by two different air masses, one north and one south of the low level ridge axis shown in the image by the blue zig zag. Believe storm motions will be from the NNW north of the axis to almost from due north near the axis and then towards the SW over South Florida during afternoon activity. The far SE Coast is the most dry, but not so dry that at least showers can't form. There could end up being more showers down that way, especially over the Everglades than current guidance/thinking alludes.


Strength of the sea breeze late this afternoon is the deciding factor today on whether or not activity will get east of I-95. Based on the current steering evolving, believe most activity will stay west of I-95 after 2pm (north of Brevard County) and be at its greatest strength well inland down the spine of the state. Outflows from this activity could try to ignite fresher activity toward either coast after 6:30pm which could reach the immediate A1A corridor (in a much weakened) state after 7 or 8pm...probably only as rainshowers or clouds.. especially since steering back toward the east, albeit only around 10mph, becomes more 'stacked' thru the atmosphere toward sunset.


However (isn't there always a 'however'?)...recent Rapid Update Cycle spit-out is indicating some disturbances in the mid and upper levels very close to I-95 in Brevard near sunset. Should those manifest, than the east coast is more likely to see some activity east of I-95 in Brevard, Indian River, and maybe St. Lucie Counties.


And for the standard "there is always a chance that' note: There is a chance that some sort of surface low circulation will form over South Central Florida very late today to cover much of the area. This might need to be watched for more coverage of thunder. Given the amount of cloud cover at this time, though, I'm not fully convinced.


MONDAY-THURSDAY: Different set ups evolve in coming days as well until a stronger mid-upper level region of high pressure builds south from the North and shuts the 'on the wet side' cycle off. It appears that could begin as soon as mid-day Friday and last for quite some time. In other words, our days of rain on the east side of the state just about anywhere might be numbered for quite a while by later in the week heading toward next weekend. Once the high pressure builds in, as noted yesterday, it is followed by much drier air and unidirectional easterly winds from the surface and up through the mid to upper levels of the atmosphere. Any sea breeze convergence storms in this regime will favor the far west side of the state.