Chance of Thunderstorms Remains for Later Today

JANUARY 5, 2014 , Cape Canaveral

TODAY: Brief post as little to be written from previous post (yesterday). Chance of thunderstorms today continues from mainly regions south of I-10 and near and north of Lake Okeechobee, with the signals of a more refined area pointing toward Central Florida as of the mid-morning hour. 

As noted previously, light to moderate instability in the absence of any low level shear with no discernible boundaries and only weak mid-level shear with weak divergence aloft (though it is cold aloft) should lead to some thunderstorms today , mainly inland from the immediate east coast though not exclusively so. Some areas could see up to an inch of rain but many are more likely to see in the .20" - .40" range (less than 1/2 inch), with perhaps some areas receiving more of a lighter but longer 'soaking' and/or a more dense overcast sky later today as opposed to rains.

  

The bigger 'storms' might first initiate toward the West Coast and spread a canopy of high to mid level clouds eastward which would then turn down the convective oven's energy level (lower the CAPE - Convective Available Potential Energy due to precedent cloud cover), but some 'voracity (spell check for 'vorticity)' coming across Central seems to be the prime impetus to keep some of the activity rolling along and off shore mainly Central to North Florida. North Florida will see weaker Cape and not sure the vorticity impulses will cross that region quite as fully to warrant a strong storm outcry much of anywhere today other than an isolated  stronger huff and puff here or there.

Rains should end by early evening post-dark most regions but some areas will likely still be seeing at least some drips up through 9pm .

TUESDAY-WEDNESDAY: Same as previous post with near to just above normal temperatures, mainly because of warmer overnight lows.

THURSDAY: The GFS has shifted gears to a low to non-existent storm threat; however, will watch this as that is quite a shift in gears from several previous model runs and not fully sold yet on the lesser rain chances until we see some consistency on what spits out from the GFS in upcoming generations. Two more runs will tell the story though more than likely. OTHERWISE...

INTO FRIDAY: Friday looks to be the 'coldest' morning (40Fs and lower 50Fs mainly) for quite some time to come with a slow warming trend beyond until Sunday. Like last Sunday, as the warmth returns it brings with it deeper moisture and coastal rain chances. 

BEYOND; The other difference now from the previous guidance is an increasing coastal rain chance in the extended. That too will be worth a watching for as the latest is actually indicating measurable rain amounts for a few consecutive days going into early next week. Suspect this all might be coming from an overnight model bias of the 06Z (1AM EST) GFS run ( not using any other model guidance at this time for this blogpost), and as such, it will be interesting to see what emerges later today and tomorrow in subsequent guidance.  

The End.