Warm, Increased Rain Chances Monday - Wednesday

Morning Low  - December 14, 2010. Cape Canaveral, 29F. Lots of ice that morning in the area.

TODAY: Mainly sunny today with a high in the upper 70Fs near the beach to lower 80Fs inland mainly south of I-4. There could be a few light showers mainly South Half of Florida today that would work toward east central after dark, but any shower will be brief and light. 

TONIGHT-EARLY MONDAY: Slight chance of patchy fog and/or low clouds, although winds might start to increase just a bit to off set that chance. In any case, any fog that does form will be quick to burn off.  Increasing moist air to progress from the SW Caribbean from the direction of the Yucatan will begin to funnel north and east across Florida, to approach Central by noon tomorrow. Therefore, increasing humidity as well with highs tomorrow a degree or so warmer than today if cloud cover does not develop too quickly and off set that potential; meanwhile, a cold front will be approach the state. The next image indicates by colored gradients the forecast temperature at 1PM tomorrow EST across the country, with the orange and reds the warmest temperatures.

As can be seen here, tomorrow afternoon will be warmest across the SE Atlantic States mainly into Alabama.

 
MONDAY AFTERNOON: Model consistency is indicating a chance of thunderstorms Central after 2pm through dark. Note the wind barbs (in the image above) are showing the circulation coming up off the western tip of Cuba and across Central Florida around high pressure pulling off to the east of the state, and already centered off of this map east of Bermuda.  

Instability will be ample for thunder tomorrow, and whether there could be some strong ones remains a bit iffy. So far, indications are that most of the South Central and South  Florida will not see much in storms either Monday or Tuesday. I believe that is because the atmosphere there, if the GFS is correct, will be capped by warm air in the mid levels, leaving mainly Central to parts of North Central in the mix for storm, rains, clouds.

TUESDAY: The front will only be about  1/2 way into the Panhandle on Tuesday leaving yet another day for rain and thunder chances. Again, south Florida is left out of the rains, at least from Lake Okeechobee and Southward. Indications are the front will be approaching Central though, and that a second impulse will form along the said boundary possibly originating from the eastern Gulf of Mexico and then riding eastward along the front, stalling the front, and generating a continuous stream of showers with 'elevated thunder' (that is to say, high based thundershowers with a few rumbles under mostly cloudy conditions) potentially late Tuesday afternoon and well in the evening, mainly across Dead Central where the unstable atmosphere feed from South Florida, not able to be utilized due to the cap in that location, can break free near the frontal boundary approaching Central; but, working south with time.

WEDNESDAY: Front to continue to sink toward to just south of I-4 by early afternoon, and rain-showers forming along it. Do not believe we will see thunder this day as any instability could be drained out from a departing low pressure system early in the day, possibly before sunrise. The boundary is expected to pass through Central somewhere between late afternoon Wednesday to before sunrise Thursday.

Wednesday afternoon shows still, warm air over Florida Peninsula (note the rest of the country outside of Florida's Afternoon high temperatures)

THURSDAY/BEYOND: The GFS is consistent with the front after its stall near Central Florida to progress quickly through the remainder of the state either overnight Wednesday or early Thursday  taking a line of showers and maybe some rumbles into South Florida before pulling off shore. But how cold will it get!?

Not bad. By Friday morning the wind may already be coming out of the NNE-NE (off the ocean), setting up for modifying conditions before the cold air even gets out of the starting blocks. Conditions then modulating toward similar to what we've seen lately by the end of next weekend and early into the next week as another front approaches.

BEYOND: The looks for severe weather are starting to disappear in the long range extended, but can never say never; the GFS has a tendency to latch on to an idea, then drop it for 48-72 hours, only to bring it right back again. As it stands now, that model has been oscillating between getting a good cool to cold air blast in toward the 14-19th of December time frame, with another to follow after that toward a day or so before Christmas. That is too far out in time to even consider model reliability in any case no matter which situation it is showing at this point.