Sublime Pattern Change Could Bring Increased Storm Activity through Saturday

June 18th  2014 off the coast of Cape Canaveral

TODAY: As the remnant circulation of former TS Bill moves east across parts of Northern Arkansas and Southern Missouri the persistent Atlantic Ridge axis which has been dominating the rather low activity of June has  temporarily  relaxed its  ' large coverage ' negating affects. 

The net affect will be to weaken the east to west steering currents of the past week allowing for sea breeze convergence/lake breeze boundaries to interact more effectively in the presence of a slight overall moisture increase. The GFS and NAM both show an up-tick in the westerly component at the 925mb (2000 ft level) which should aid in a slightly slower inland progression of the east coast sea breeze today while winds above that will be NW-N- and then light and variable as a mid-level high pressure bubble meanders across Central Florida.

 Overall, given the trend of the past few days (persistence),  there might be some marginally strong to severe storms once again over the interior with a bit more of a leaning toward the eastern side of the peninsula though not on the Barrier Islands exact (for example).

Strongest activity noted in red below is only an over generalized picture of where some isolated briefly warned storms might occur today, generally after 4:00-4:30pm through early evening.

There is a chance that the earliest activity will go over east central/central and outflow from this activity could result in the strongest of storms both to the south and north of that location in the early evening hours as the NAM had shown in previous runs, but nothing can be for certain in such a flow pattern. Broad brush strokes might be the best philosophy.

SATURDAY: Not much change other than that the west to east steering might be even a bit more persuasive over the north half of the peninsula...so that activity might be able to actually penetrate to the beaches north of Brevard County.

BEYOND: Not a whole lot of change other than the steering again relaxes and perhaps moisture levels will decrease storm activities back to the more atypical isolated fashion for this time of year that has been in place.

IN THE EXTENDED: The GFS has storms favoring the east side of the state to even moving offshore the east coast by next weekend for several days; although, it has shown this trend a few times in the past which never ended up evolving. If the GFS does finally verify now only a week out for several days in a row, the next factor would be yet still, 'But will there be enough moisture to quench the thirst of some moisture deprived coastal regions yet still?" Time will tell. 

Moisture availability, especially in situations  lacking a particular synoptic scale set up (e.g., lack of large scale affects) that would definitively advect  tropical  moisture to the regions, is a tough guess as it can vary widely on a daily basis...especially in regard to the far future.