Good Rain Chances Today, Storms, Small Waterspout Chance East Side/Lake

See Captions: There is a very small chance of a waterspout today in the lavender areas through 1:30pm. The area toward the Cape looks primed for noon-2pm in terms of forecast RUC winds as of 10am, but clouds might all but remove that chance of even a rain shower until later..specifically watching from Ft. Pierce to Canaveral...ocean or rivers otherwise.

TODAY: Reversal of Fortune day at hand as the mid level ridge axis is retreating back to the west; however, matters are complicated a bit as it appears the eastern most portion is cutting off toward the Big Bend area. This has little impact other than to affect the already light steering currents and perhaps reduce rain chances for most of the western 1/2 of the Panhandle until late.


Elsewhere, the other problem is the persistent area of clouds where the blue question mark is shown. This was originally thought to be debris clouds from where the storms ended up and decayed last night (which was in the high prob of rain chances in yesterday's post...this materialized after 7pm in Polk County and toward the SW Coast).  That area seems to be eroding and should be all but gone by early afternoon, or simply decay and transition immediately into storms...but latest actuals is showing a weakly portrayed inverted upper level trough over this area. As such, it might act to either hinder storms here today due to the clouds if they persist or, if the clouds clear up, Enhance storms there late today (under the assumption this inverted trough is even still located there). None of the models have picked up on it..so believe it is just a remnant reflection of last night...be regardless..could have a big impact as a rain maker..especially early in the afternoon. If so, then outflows from those storms could send other storms off the coast from Ft Pierce to the Cape later in the afternoon.


Precipitable water values are mostly between 1.9 - 2.2" inches state wide except the extreme SE Coast of Florida. By day's end, expect to see values range from 2.0 - 2.4" inches.


Must emphasize that the higher concentrated areas of rainfall shown in red was just a 'pin the tail on the donkey...with great hesitation..he blindfoldly relates', as the eventual outcome will be a result of where outflow boundaries propagate and meet toward 7pm and the sun starts to set...that could be just about anywhere from JAX to Ft. Myers. By noon, along the east coast...winds should be very very light..with perhaps a bit of a southerly component up river and parallel to the coast, perhaps a bit from the SSW toward extreme Southeast Florida. Fter that time, sea breezes (if not sooner) will come into play and the games begin for bigger storms.  With winds just off the deck remaining from the SW (but light)..and above that near dead calm. Those are favorable winds for a waterspout (early) before outflow boundaries develop and clear out swathes of real estate (up to 60 miles across) from better rain chances. Thus, some areas will see no rain today as well.


Best chances for thunder to develop will be after 1pm, after which point OFBs (outflow boundaries) will propagate and develop storms downstream of them, although, some storms could remain nearly stationary that are at the tail end of those boundaries...a bit like at the 'pivot point'. These locations could receive over 1.5" of rain (all inland).


The best chance for strong/severe storms appears to be over NE Florida, but any outflow from a storm could produce wind gusts or straight-line persistent winds of 30-50mph...even in sunshine close to the near stationary storms that collapse. This occurred yesterday from a storm that produced some frequent lightning for about 10 minutes north of Deer Park yesterday. This image shows the rain column..yet the photo is taken in full sunshine. Winds at this time were about 35mph from the North.

This doesn't look like much...but right up that road is heavy rain, and lightning was coming from this storm. Shortly thereafter the storm collapsed and winds increased to 30-38mph for a brief spell.

So with that said above, it is understandable that exactly where it will or won't rain today is nearly impossible to determine. Most of the official forecasts have alluded to this fact. In turn, the Storm Prediction Center just basically said, 'forget it'  and spun the roulette wheel..apparently landing on a red-70 ..because they highlighted the entire spine of the state with a 70% chance of thunder today....that will not be the case entirely, but it gets the point across. Some storms could exit off either coast if formed along an outflow boundary as late as 9pm tonight almost anywhere (except in the Panhandle)...and SE Florida south of West Palm Beach (...again, later on today/tonight).
NOTE: Most models show nothing of the sort this hour..and seem to be focusing on the US1 to I95 corridor of Brevard into Osceola County from 3-7pm.


Coastal areas that do not receive rain today will get cloudy regardless by late afternoon due to high level cirrus and outflow midlevel cloudiness.


SATURDAY/WEDNESDAY: Good chance of thunderstorms each and every day developing late morning and lasting into the evening. Each day will be different in regard to where and when the best chances will be, but believe the strongest storms will mostly occur over the North Half of the state, whereas over the South Half there will be some other days when waterspouts could occur early in the day. On Sunday - Tuesday especially, storms will be able to exit off the east coast from mid-afternoon through early evening up and down US1...but believe South Of Lake Okeechobee will be 'worked over' prior to 6pm.


TROPICS: No concerns at this time as the first two entities out there (including Tropical Storm Franklin now already past Bermuda and moving away)..pose no threat. There is another disturbance that the GFS has been picking up though, and has tried from time to time to develop it into a hurricane. But conditions have never appeared favorable for such, and therefore believe its 2AM is closer to reality. A tropical depression forming near Puerto Rico...riding under (South) of a region of high pressure which I'm been dubbing the SAL High (Saharan Air Layer), which is decaying but has been rotating in place out there for several days now.


Expecting the pattern that has been in place for the past 2 months to remain in place with the high over Texas once again re-establishing UNTIL a significant change is manifested, and pictured for several model runs..always best to run with persistence in the long range until that time.  


With that said, a weaker system (depression vs. hurricane) could ride south of the high and be picked up by the next upper and mid level trough that will dip toward the East coast at some point...then..as that 'depression or storm' (for now at least)..encounters the trough..it is lifted northward as it approaches Florida...


Below is the latest GFS-cast of 2AM. This is BY NO MEANS what I expect to happen at this point..but it certainly looks more realistic than previous runs.

This images shows a LARGE depression over Florida NEXT Wednesday, August 23rd.
Again this is the time frame I've mentioned in several posts. This is not meant to be an 'alarmist' cast...just an 'alertistcast' for what may be. No evacuations would be necessary in this EXAMPLE.

HAPPY MEAL STORM came with a secret prize inside yesterday. This is located in Nowhere, Osceola County.