Tale of Two Fronts On The Way Mid-Week

Sunrise This January Morning. Image is a video clip take from the actual video now on YouTube

TODAY: Nice Sunrise This Morning. Video can be viewed at  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5S1wnY-5zv4


Otherwise, High Pressure is centered very close to if not over the Florida peninsula today as a complex frontal boundary gathers its wits across the Deep South with low pressure centered over North Central Texas. This system will progress eastward through tomorrow with snow as far south as San Angelo and Midland/Odessa area toward the lower panhandle region.  Meanwhile, the high pressure over Florida will be slowly progressing east and off the Peninsula during the day on Tuesday with southerly winds slowly ensuing. Temperatures to remain quite pleasant at to just above what would be considered seasonally 'normal'.


TUESDAY: Light winds again, with increasing cloudiness ahead of the approaching front, especially over portions of North Central Florida and all of North Florida. Some strong storms are possible over the Panhandle beginning late day Tuesday into Tuesday evening.


WEDNESDAY: Cold front will be approaching. South winds becoming SSW during late morning toward noon time. Becoming mostly cloudy with increasing rain chances from NW to Southeast from sunrise to sunset. At this time, would not expect any or very little rain to fall south of I-4 until after 1-2pm. Strong toward severe category storms due to strong winds are possible, mainly north of I-4. Even if no thunder is heard as far south as a line from near Vero Beach to Sarasota and north, stronger wind gusts are 'possible' due to the strong nature of the winds aloft being dragged to the surface (ground level), especially in heavier rainfall areas.  The front will continue through the remainder of the state, impact Central and South from early-mid afternoon through sunset, clearing the state by mid-late evening.


THURSDAY: Not much all that cool really, another front is on the way toward the weekend. More details concerning that boundary in a later post. So far, the guidance has been holding back on the second boundary being a rain maker; however, the trend is toward the temperatures again becoming very cool toward cold 24 hours a day, not unlike our last event...most notably this go around toward the South 1/2 of the state.


HERE IS AN IMAGE FROM THE GFS with a hand plot of fronts and pressure systems for WEDNESDAY MORNING. This image is derived from the 7AM run of the Global Forecast System (GFS) computer model forecast for only the surface parameters. This model shows wind fields, temperatures, and atmospheric moisture content all the way up toward 35,000 feet above ground at what is considered in the field of meteorology "standard constant pressure heights " in increments of millibars. Again, this is only for the surface, or in other words, what it would look like in the morning newspaper.

GFS Surface depiction for Wednesday morning. The fronts and text have been drawn in for explanatory purposes. 

BEYOND: Note there is the second front to come. It is behind that front the cold air will arrive, which could be a good 36-48 hours after the first front on Wednesday. There has been a fairly strong signal that we will again be fairly cold once again in Florida, and perhaps another good chance we will encounter and even greater severe weather threat heading out of week two of January toward week three. Realize, the last week of January can often be one of the coldest of the winter season, being as it is one full month after the lowest sun angle (December 22nd). There is a time lag as the earth's surface is still cooling. But, one can never know for certain. Last year, our coldest days were over during the beginning part of January.