Cool Toward Cold, Thursday & Saturday (And Beyond?)

Sunrise  Morning

TODAY/TONIGHT: The first in a series of several  cold frontal passages over the next week to 10 days  is in the process as we speak, with the first boundary located over North Florida.  This front is expected to clear 'Central Exact' around 6-8PM with no fanfare. Any rainfall to occur over Central should be over by 4pm, and be sparse at that or at least fairly brief if so. Temperatures behind the boundary only drop slightly such that by morning it will still be mostly only cool out with upper 40Fs through 50Fs and maybe a 60F or so from the Cape and south. The best part about this boundary is that skies will clear somewhat behind it but we might still be dealing with high clouds all day Wednesday  with highs in the low to mid 60Fs for the most part.

THURSDAY: The next front is then expected to pass through Wednesday night around 2am. The latest GFS is showing STRONG cold air advection behind the boundary with seemingly normal bed time temperatures Wednesday night dropping hard and fast in the middle of the night with frontal passage in full swing at sunrise Central and north Florida. Guidance in the last GFS  run showed strong NNW winds especially at the beaches for the first half of Thursday , possibly gusting to 35 mph if not toward 40mph, with highs never getting out of the mid-upper 40Fs at that . That is a new development though , but be advised just in case especially coastal Volusia where near freezing temperatures might also occur early in the day. Winds then are forecast to drop off as the day proceeds.


FRIDAY: Again cold but not quite as cold. Another boundary will be approaching once again with reinforcements and another big drop in temperatures Friday night after a day time high in the low-mid 60Fs or upper 50Fs. 

SATURDAY: this morning now appears to be the coldest one on tap statewide this winter with freezing to near freezing temperatures well south to Southwest Florida and upper 30Fs over the Barrier Islands of Brevard if not colder. We will likely be hearing more regarding 'Frost Warnings and Advisories" as this set up will not be true  wind advection cold but to include radiational cooling  and drainage flow at night down the spine of the state. The immediate beaches are not usually as affected by such conditions for the most part, but this upcoming 10 days could prove to be an 'agricultural challenge'...as this image indicates.

Central Florida per this image has the honors of being the 'Most Below Normal"  in the temperature department for the entire country in the upcoming days ahead.

OUTSIDE OF THE COLD HEADLINES :  Cloud cover does not appear to be such a persistent issue  as noted in the previous post, and onshore Atlantic winds ...say goodbye to them too. Winds for quite some time will mainly be from the NNW-N or the West before each approaching cold front. The GFS shows no southerly winds at all for nearly 10 days at least..with a brief 2 day warm up before the next surge of cold air moves in ...in about a week from now. But things change  we'll just have to see it out.