Strong/Marginally "Severe" Storms Overnight Saturday toward Noon Sunday?

SUNRISE THURSDAY MORNING: 11 - 6 -2014

TODAY: Cold front approaching Florida to slide through Central Florida around sunrise Friday morning and to proceed South to the Florida Straits. This is a very shallow boundary and other than some mostly cloudy skies with the front, little active weather is anticipated, yea nary a rain-shower if even.  An upper level low meanwhile is winding up as shown below toward N. Mexico / SW TX which will open up and proceed eastward in the next 48-72 hours as an upper level trough and instigate weak cyclogenesis east of Brownsville , Tx. The front over Florida will lift back north toward Central (as it stands now) during the day on Saturday to just south of I-4 or perhaps not even as far north as a Tampa bay to Canaveral line by nightfall or even after dark. Position of that boundary will be critical in regard to rainfall, and if possible even some 'marginal' (dare we say) severe weather.

Rainfall over Florida mainly beginning afternoon along the West Coast in various places spreading eastward mostly overnight. There might be TWO shots of active weather somewhere across Central or North Central Florida, if not even south Florida. Just too far out in time to say for certain.

FRIDAY: Clearing skies from North to South early morning toward noon time but more clouds it appears will be across South Florida as the mid-level trough never clears that area. Northerly wind behind the front with highs it appears in the mid-upper 70Fs, otherwise pleasant on Friday North half of state by early afternoon if not sooner.

SATURDAY: By this day we'll have a better handle on what if anything transpires across the Gulf of Mexico. The guidance has been showing several vorticity (energy) lobes at various levels of the atmosphere over time to cross Florida from Late Afternoon and into the over night hours. Usually, guidance is not very accurate in regards to these perturbations, esp. this far out in time; hence the post is Very Preliminary; note that no official outlets are calling for any 'severe weather' as of this time.

SUNDAY: Latest Guidance has slowed the oncoming 'set up' a bit, which was previously forecast to occur and clear the area prior to sunrise Sunday, but now the GFS has a second upper disturbance which could affect parts of Central and/or South Central into the early afternoon on this day with more rainfall. Much could occur especially across the Loop Current over the Eastern Gulf so it does bear some watching.  GFS shows plenty of Bulk Shear sometimes down to the 2000 ft level and much more so aloft in the presence of divergence aloft with the jet stream. Very  cold air in the 5000-10,000ft layer by Florida standards could set off some surprises (storms) as the newer model run shows as later as later morning toward Noon time toward the east coast, but in what way is hard to say though 'hail' is always a possibility if , and only IF some true storms can get going..esp. in the presence of so much directional and speed shear. Right now it does not seem out of the question for elevated rotation in storms to manifest but again, it's still way to early to make the leap with any degree of confidence for continuity's sake.

BEYOND : Front to clear by later Sunday as it is now but updates will be necessary.  For now, expect your fav TV weathercaster to shift his or her tune several times between today and early to mid day Saturday though as models change around.

Northerly winds to NNE wind will make for very cool inland to west coast mornings, but at this rate the immediate east coast appears will again escape the worst of the cold air, with as much as a 15 degrees temperature difference from west to east across the state at sunrise hours through at least Tuesday/Wednesday mornings with afternoons in the 70Fs.  Another big front is being forecast by the weather headlines to impact the eastern 3/4 of the U.S. later next week, and much banter is being bounced around about that next system currently taking shape in the Gulf of Alaska. Time will tell just how low we can go, but Florida so far is being etched in as escaping the worst of the entire mess. Fingers crossed.