Very Warm Again - East Central Beaches Could See Storms/Rain Today (Finally)

"Mid-June Cape Canaveral, Florida  Sunrise"

TODAY: West to Southwest flow surface and aloft will gradually increase into the weekend. This much has been now long advertised to be accompanied by colder air aloft come the weekend. 

As noted in previous post there was a concern that eventually the westerly flow just 'above the deck' would be too strong for even an east coast sea breeze to form. This appears might be the case come Thursday into Friday, but even moreso over the upcoming weekend. Will watch to see if tomorrow the east coast sea breeze can be a 'late bloomer pegged to within a mile or two of the coast' in any case and from there model guidance between the ECMWF and the GFS differs in how to deal with low pressure to form east of the Georgia - Jax coast well offshore along a stalled frontal boundary which may or might not make it as far south as Central Florida. All those factors affect the weekend forecast. But for today:

Warm again with inland highs in the mid 90Fs edging toward even warmer and lower 90Fs even along the east coast before onset of the sea breeze. Humid with rather high Heat Index numbers ranging from upper 90Fs to near 106F.

The latest water vapor loops show significant drying in the upper levels (see below) over the course of the past 24 hours yet with ample moisture in the lower levels per model guidance. Will be interesting to see the morning KSC Sounding. 

This usually means late  day activity in regard to thunder especially with continued warm air aloft which will require greater forcing with boundary mergers (lake breeze/sea breezes). 

Surprisingly the NAM handled the situation of last evening with even reports of small hail the best of all model guidance. For today, it again shows activity especially over the Brevard County area and south toward Ft. Pierce. Looks like a day that the Lake Shadow might play a role in initiation with outflow boundaries propagating northward to Brevard with time though once the west coast sea breeze works its way across the state, which will still take some time, a few showers could go up almost anywhere along either sea breeze boundary (the east coast sea breeze does not appear will make it much more than about 35 miles or so inland today so the collision will occur much close to I-95 today).

Last evening the sea breeze collision occur over and near the Florida turnpike in general but close to the east coast toward Volusia and north permitting activity to move offshore (not so further south)

THURSDAY: Westerlies up and down the atmospheric column begin to increase which 'might' put the crunch on development of the east coast sea breeze altogether but will give the benefit of the doubt and allow for one even closer to the coast to develop than for today. Might be there will be thunder but if so (and in this case) the thunder would be offshore rather than over land.  Moisture might be on the increase as well permitting more cumulus cloud coverage which would temper down afternoon high temperatures, but we'll have to see on that.

And Going into Friday - much like Thursday. If anything, the east coast sea breeze might be able to form near or south of Ft Pierce, so would look toward that area for the best chance of thunder both Thursday and Friday far South Central toward Dade County with showers possible as far north as the Cape .


BEYOND: As previously surmised numerous forecast challenges appeared to be waiting on the wings and model guidance (ECMWF vs GFS ) and forecast discussions from official sources allude to this.

For now favoring a perspective  based on history (it appears) and as inferred from the TPA office . With the east/west boundary and accompanying stretched out low pressure area in close proximity toward the Georgia/Florida border if not even further south and increasing moisture pooled along and ahead of it, looks like a case of early initiation over the eastern Gulf to those coastal counties there from Cedar Key and south going into the weekend. 

This activity then spreads eastward during the day and increases in coverage. Will be interesting to see how things pan out and when the boat comes in on the  two big player models  concerning the low pressure area and attendant trough as a summer weekend and accompanying plans for it need to be considered.

Until then, might look for a rather wet Saturday but starting on on the east side at least just like every other day this week.