Interesting Mesoscale Labor Day

(Image: LDIS plot of averaged midlevel winds shows a counterclockwise circulation over Okeechobee County and lots of moisture (blue))

 

RECAP: As mentioned yesterday, it appeared there might have been some sort of low pressure circulation Okeechobee County. I've included an image depicting the averaged mid-level winds from around 6pm last night. If you follow the direction the barbs point, it does indeed draw out a counterclockwise circulation in that spot 8 hours after that observation. This was not a tropical low...in fact, it really wasn't a low at all, at least not at the surface as was observed by looking at surface barometric pressures for the same area. Otherwise, very light winds at the surface prevailed before the showers formed, and I was on the hunt for waterspouts. It was also observed that once heating began some very strange low level clouds were racing down the barrier islands ...parallel to Merritt Island and the A1A strip from North to South. Although winds just above them were very light. Something strange was going on yesterday, and it got more complex as the day wore one. The potential for waterspouts/funnels quickly waned by 1pm and was replaced with building thunderstorms across extreme East Central Florida whereas south of Palm Beach it remained relatively dry. One of the greatest lightning generating storms passed nearly over the same location as the previous day somewhere just west or southwest of Rockledge as it appeared on data. Hard to say for sure. Eventually all of East Central to Southeast Florida filled in. Also, shortly before the time I saved the included image there was a brief period of quite gusty winds from the ESE right along the coast perhaps exceeding 25mph. They were probably associated with outflow from heavier rains to the south, but the direction from which they came from was suspicious. In any case, whatever "that" was over Okeechobee is long gone...I suspect it lost identity and drifted south, which would explain the eruption of storms over extreme SE Florida and right on Key Biscayne around 9pm last night.

 

SYNOPSIS: Broad area of high pressure over the SE states with the axis as far north as the Carolinas. Much drier air worked south over the North half of the state to as far as Vero, but it seems that was mostly dry air in the most upper levels. Sure enough, the KSC sounding just became available and is showing a PWAT of 2.14" (very moist). Winds are generally light from the east at all levels, although there was oddly a slight offshore component to flat out calm winds over Brevard and Indian River County at sunrise and even now at 8am. Regardless of the surface winds, showers have a definitive east to west motion and have been pushing onshore the Shuttle Launch pad area to Titusville, with the latest one working into near Oak Hill in Southern Volusia. It appears the southern extent of dry air is being eroded from the south right at Central Brevard, and animations show this trend continuing at another location well off shore. Very oddly, it almost appears that a cyclonic circulation might be imbedded in the mid-level almost right over the tip of the Cape as I write right where the winds are nearly calm and skies are blue. Showers are wrapping around the top of this 'circulation', circumventing Central and South Brevard for the time being. Elsewhere, a shower came in near Ft. Pierce, but the area from roughly St. Lucie County south is under a totally different weather regime for the moment with much less shower activity off shore and over the Bahamas than what is off shore East Central Florida. Nothing much else going on around the state at 7am.

 

TROPICAL STORM HERMINE: Hermine came on shore within a few miles of Brownsville. The lowest pressure I saw an hour ago reported was near Alice, Texas at 29.35". The winds was from the south at 39 gusting to 52mph, but was from the East the hour prior...I.e., a tropical storm, with the actual eye just to the west of Alice.

 

Although winds from Hermine will weaken today, the big deal with this storm is going to be the moisture as it works toward San Antonio and points North. I have a feeling we're going to be hearing about "The Moisture from Hermine" for many days to come with flash flooding becoming the big issue over the East half of Texas into Oklahoma. These systems have a weird way of behaving when they get in this region, and memorable flooding disasters in the past have occurred from similar scenarios. Needs watching, especially since it will be interacting with a cold front moving in from the west.  In the meantime, a tornado watch is currently in place for much of SE Texas as would be expected to the east and northeast of a land falling tropical system.

 

TODAY: Very tricky forecast at this time of day, so a lot of what I'm going to write is mostly 'gut feeling' oriented. Moisture will remain over the area with little in upper level winds, but generally from the east. Winds even now are still generally calm over east Brevard, which gives reason to suspect that greater, unforeseen forces might be at work. Initially, this day could start out as a 'teaser' with plentiful showers over the Gulf Stream waters approaching the coast from S. Volusia- Indian River County, but never quite making it to land once that get away from the Gulf Stream waters. But things could change pretty quickly between 10:00am - 1pm with heating of the day. This time frame might be the make or break point. If showers start to make it onshore in earnest, much of the first half of the day through late afternoon will be a series of showers and eventually some thunder after 12:30pm, with brief periods of gusty winds (around 25mph) near the heavy ones. With winds the way they are right now, showers might be able to form over the Intracoastal with very little movement, especially after 12pm.  Toward Indian River County to Miami things might hold off much longer. Actually, some of the models indicate little activity  from West Palm to Ft. Lauderdale today..in essence, east of Lake Okeechobee...but we'll see. Moisture is plentiful down that way right now. My gut says that anything significant to occur further south will be west of I-95 (which by the way is pretty close to the coast) in South Florida. Maybe even much further west than that. The west coast will see the rains by mid-late afternoon from Naples to just south of Bradenton. Tampa will hold off even longer, but eventually get in the action.

 

The other option further north into extreme East Central Florida is that no showers make it on shore and it remains relatively rain free all day. But just inland it will be a different story..particularly west of I-95 through Orange/Seminole/Okeechobee/Lake Counties after 1-2pm and much more so by 4pm. Could see some good rain coverage today inland.

 

WEDNESDAY-THURSDAY: Again, another tricky period. Moisture will be aplenty, but mid-upper level temperatures could go up a degree or two which would make a significant difference as far as rainfall possibilities are concerned. No big weather systems or pressure areas will affect Central or South Florida...so would expect a more summer like pattern, one which favors the inland counties and the west side of the state by late in the day, but as has been typical this summer, of less overall coverage than what one would normally expect to see.

 

Beyond Thursday: Nothing significant to occur per last night's models. Haven't seen today's runs as they are not yet available. But as mentioned yesterday, a pattern that could favor more of the east side of the state could be in the works by Friday or Saturday, but even that general pattern looks weak and remains a big question mark. There simply isn't much going on during the waning thunderstorm season when nothing tropical is waiting in the wings, but we still have generally 2 more weeks of the season which comes in spurts rather than being an everyday occurrence. Hints are there that we might be in for a 2-3 day period of NW steering flow aloft, which although this results in less storm coverage, some of the best storms I've seen on the east coast have come from that direction.

 

TROPICS: Other than Hermine, nothing much. Gaston is pretty much no more. Remnants will approach the Leeward Islands and Puerto Rico, and anything that remains beyond there would go into the Dominican Republic and be torn apart by that landmass's rugged terrain. The next storm would be named IGOR. Will IGOR be another Atlantic Storm? Probably, but we need to start watching the Gulf of Mexico in the next two weeks. Hermine really wasn't that big a surprise. Heck, we were seeing something going on down in the Bay of Campeche for days as was referred to in the posts, but it wasn't being hyped by the press ..or even mentioned. Thus, many folks thought this system came out of nowhere...granted, it did become a named entity quickly, or so it seems...only because it was so close to an affected U.S. region when this occurred. The same thing happens out in the Atlantic, but no one cares because there's no one out there to be directly affected other than folks with marine interests.

 

 

Soups On!

Image: Towering Clouds Indicative of a waterspout formation failed to produce anything but rain shortly before noon today (Cape Canaveral)

 

RECAP: Big storms yesterday for East Central Florida with widespread rains, some light and some heavier, almost every where for Central and South Central Florida. Looked like a normally active summer day for the most part, one of which we've not had witness to all summer. No doubt, the outflow boundary in the early morning from convection offshore the Cape which was mentioned yesterday was a key player. It remained stationary along the western Brevard County line all day. Meanwhile, lower thickness values which had retreated north slipped back south again as was presumed might happen. As such, the bigger storms went up along the leading edge of this cooler air aloft near SE Volusia County then rapidly fired down the  combined sea breeze/outflow boundary  line of Brevard then further south along the sea breeze along the East Coast into Martin County. Further toward Ft. Pierce another merger occurred between the Lake Okeechobee breeze and sea breeze boundaries. All activity was eventually caught up in the prevailing WSW winds aloft and was pushed slowly offshore during the course of the evening toward midnight. Lots of lightning near the Brevard/Orange county line, not to discount some other locales around the state as well.

 

SYNOPSIS: Tropical Storm Hermine in the extreme SW Gulf of Mexico off the Mexican coast can be see on satellite imagery. Some sort of boundary runs north from the system then east across the Gulf of Mexico to Tampa then across the state to the Cape. Winds aloft are very light aloft from the west while right and at the surface then are being affected by local geographic features. It appears there might be a weak low over Okeechobee County and another well offshore ENE of the Cape. The stationary front that was to our north appears to be retreating north into Central Georgia as a surface ridge builds north ward near the southern shore of the Lake. All features are very weak though other than Hermine. Also of note is a large TUTT low northwest of Puerto Rico. Circulation around this system is clearly evident as it pushes west toward the Bahamas.

 

TODAY: Tough call! Latest 11am KSC sounding shows a very soupy atmosphere with PWAT up to 2.15". 500mb temperature aloft at about -7.1C and 700mb temperature around +7mb. About the same as last night. What can I say, there's lots of moisture and cooler air aloft than last week and the weeks before, but there's also a lot of clouds. However, some areas are receiving lots-o- sunshine (heating). Storms/showers are popping just about anywhere at this time with all the moisture around and various mesoscale boundaries being established near lakes and waterways. Outflows from these boundaries, including one just about to reach the Cape from activity well offshore will interact and produce general chaos as far as defining a definitive area for where rains are most likely. Leaving it to say, by this evening somebody could get really dumped on, whereas other areas will remain totally dry.

 

Normally, we'd expect that once the sea breeze sets up which has yet to occur in truth at 1pm north of West Palm Beach (about where the ridge axis further south is located). This has yet to occur north of Ft Pierce but expect with the approaching boundary winds will become more easterly near the Cape shortly. Storm motions will be very slow. Pretty much everything that was said yesterday applies to today. Interestingly though, as of now convective showers seem to have having an affinity to developing over East Brevard County locally speaking. In fact, just now as I type I heard thunder!

I'd say potential funnel cloud or waterspout formation is not completely out of the question.

 

TOMORROW: I'm leaving this up for later model runs, namely because there is no agreement amongst them. They haven't handled Hermine well AT ALL! Yesterday, the NAM was showing it to be practically a hurricane, now today it shows it only as a minimal storm, if even. Which is just the inverse of what is occurring. Also, the NAM is again showing that big rains could be in store for the East coast sometime tomorrow or Wednesday from the Cape to Miami, and even forms a low right over the Cape in the process. The GFS shows no such development. The GFS also does not handle Hermine well at all.

 

BEYOND TOMORROW: More complications. (Oops..MORE THUNDER just now). The affects of easterly flow by Thursday might not be as long lived as previously thought, once another front crosses the Mississippi River and gets east of it. The ridge could sink as far south as Central Florida rather than remain north of there...of even further south. This would have a big impact for South and Central Florida late Thursday into the weekend time frame.

 

IN SUMMARY: Don't believe everything you hear in the next two days via media. I noticed our local newspaper in the weather section didn't even show Hermine at all..not even as a little red low on the map.

UPDATE: Florida Weather Today

NOW: Surface features remain status quo with frontal boundary generally along the Florida/Georgia border and surface ridge along the southern tip of Florida. Huge explosion of convection in the Eastern Gulf west of Tampa as can been seen on Tampa's latest radar. Surface trough or boundary appears to be emanating from this complex toward Port Charlotte which is moving little. Elsewhere, appears that a very weak area of surface low pressure is forming near Southern Polk/Osceola County which the RUC has picked up on nicely.

 

Convection from early this morning off Daytona - Cape continues moving NE and weakening. The outflow from this convection is easily visible on animated visible satellite imagery. It managed to push through  Brevard/Volusia into Seminole and Orange but is quickly becoming indiscernible as diurnal cumulus are filling the bridge it created. As a result, an early NE wind developed along the coast, but was very light. In other words, not the sea breeze. It lingers just west of I-95 in Orange/Seminole/Osceola Counties and may become a focal point for convection this afternoon.  Lowest dew point temperatures are generally found down the interior of the peninsula though. 15z KSC sounding came in and shows warming to the standard 10C temperature at 700mb we've been encountering the past month, whereas the 500mb temp has remained constant at somewhere between -7C to -8C. It was mentioned earlier that thickness values may increase since the earlier post, and this indeed has occurred per the increased 700mb temperature. An enhanced west coast sea breeze due to early convection off Naples is sending a weak outflow toward Polk County from the SW.

 

It currently appears that any chance of small hail would be restricted to interior Flagler/Volusia Counties where cooler air aloft likely resides, but still need to watch to see if those thickness values alluded to in the previous post shift south again later this afternoon. If they do the tiny hail threat could be extended into Seminole, Orange, and Northern Osceola Counties.  Fly in the ointment is the convection off Tampa. Cirrus clouds are already starting to encroach parts of Central Florida due to the storm tops reaching the jet stream level right as the best heating of the day begins. At this point in time, the longer one can indulge in hot afternoon temperatures...the more likely they are to get wet much later today into tonight. Storms along the east coast could be on-going or redevelop tonight...particularly over east Brevard County where they would be the last to see rain (if it occurs at all).

 

Elsewhere, assuming that other storms get going which still seems pretty likely...it will be a mix of where the high clouds are most prohibitive for storm formation with where they are more likely due to a late afternoon west meets east collision with lake breeze boundaries and additional outlfows.

Storms might have a hard time reaching the immediate East Coast north of Vero Beach initially...and be more likely to do so north of the Cape by no later than early evening (before sunset)...especially in Volusia and Flagler.

 

MONDAY (Labor Day): No change in previous thinking other than this. It clearly ain't summer out there anymore with the lower dew points. Point is, pre-noon time convection might have a harder time to get going near the Cape, especially IF there is late evening convection near the coast and residual clouds linger. We'll just have to see what happens this evening.

Storms Possible Today - Some May Be Strong (Later Post Likely)

(Image: Derived from the RUC, Theta-E at 7pm tonight. Note the low values north of the Florida Peninsula and the gradient indicating the surface frontal boundary)

RECAP: Rains were in small supply yesterday other than for a few select areas. The region most impacted yesterday was St. Lucie County near Ft. Pierce as well as Martin County. Like the day before, another storm went up and passed directly over Miami's Radar Beam. As expected, deeper moisture return to Central Florida came a 'day late and dollar short', but not before a small shower or two popped well after dark which fed on what heat generated remaining instability remained. This shower was located in extreme NE Osceola County which crossed into Western Brevard around 10pm. Some lightning was observed. Otherwise, the heat was own. My porch thermometer got up to 97F with a very localized delayed sea breeze. At Patrick AFB it was 89 degrees at the same time with an east wind. Within 10 minutes after this observation which was around 2pm...the sea breeze came up here as well and the temperature dropped 8 degrees within 20 minutes to 89F. Melbourne got up to 95F officially; one degree shy of their record high temperature for the date.

 

NOW (8:30am): Just saw the KSC 10Z (6AM) sounding. What a surprise! Precipitable Water (PWAT) is up to 1.91" from Friday's 1.71". More significantly though, 700mb temperature has dropped from +10C to +8C and 500mb temperature has dropped to between -7 to -8C...this is the coolest temperature aloft since early - mid June that I've seen (it has been at -5C). That means all summer essentially. Early morning thunderstorms went up just off the East Central Coast with mucho lightning visible before sunrise east and northeast of the Cape which from an observational perspective was very pretty to watch under locally a clear sky with the moon beaming. This activity is continuing to move away from land, and just within the past 30 minutes an outflow boundary emanating from initial collapse of these storms was visible on MLB's WSR-88D approaching the coast from just south of Daytona to the northern tip of the Cape. In the last frames that boundary appears to be washing out and making little if any additional progress into Canaveral. Some storms did back build along this boundary further north toward Daytona which couldn't quite meet the landmass. Shortly before sending this post storms really flared along this boundary which are now moving offshore Flagler County toward offshore St. Augustine. Elsewhere, no shower activity of note over or near the peninsula other than some weak showers reaching the west coast of the state well north of Tampa near Crystal River. Also of note in the sounding, there is a weak inversion and dry layer between 500-5000 ft. which will put a damper on late morning showers near the coast it seems now.

 

SYNOPSIS: The surface front to the north is now elongated from extreme SE Georgia to near Jacksonville westward across I-10 to between Tallahassee and Apalachicola and continues west along the extreme northern Gulf. Surface temperatures over the western Florida panhandle this morning were in the mid-60s further west and well behind the boundary. Dew points behind the boundary are in the upper 50s...whereas ahead of the boundary they are in the low 70s.  See the attached image of Theta-E values for early this evening. This indicates little motion of the boundary today. as this is how these values currently look as well. This boundary lies west and pretty much meets up with the inverted trough (at the mid-levels) emanating from a complex low pressure system which has been residing in the Southern Bay of Campeche for at least two days . This front continues NNE-NE well off the U.S. East Coast off of Maine. So essentially, all of peninsular Florida remains south of the boundary. Meanwhile, the ridge of high pressure that was somewhere between the Florida Straits and Cuba yesterday is lifting north and now is located over the Southern Tip of the state.

 

FIRST STAB AT TODAY: In observation of forecast 1000-500mb thickness values, there is a drop in thickness of this atmospheric layer over Central Florida this morning roughly from South Brevard to Tampa which probably accounts for the lower 700/ 500mb temperatures as noted above on KSC's sounding from 6am. This line is forecast to shift north during the first half of the day...but then return to it's current location by later this afternoon. This will be key player today, as it indicates what the upper level temperatures will be doing over our heads. Surface dew points have gone up a few more degrees across Central and South Florida, but still are not up to par for a full on summer like afternoon storm set up north of a Sarasota/West Palm line.  Mid level winds continue from the WSW but are not very strong, 15kts or less. Thus, sea breeze should start up along the entire coast within 1 hour either side of noon. Just ahead of this boundary is when a Cumulus cloud field should form and become more pronounced inland between US-1 and I-95, most likely west of I-95. We'll need to watch for showers going up along the sea breeze, particularly further south of Ft. Pierce on the east coast where greater moisture resides and winds aloft are quite light. They might be watching for waterspouts before noon from near Boynton Beach south to Miami as the mid-level ridge axis begins to move overhead there and winds aloft become very light. Otherwise, the region near or just south of Miami along the east coast MIGHT get temporarily dry slotted during the afternoon as the ridge axis passes north of their locale, which could off set the likelihood of late storms south of Miami or perhaps Ft. Lauderdale. But further north along the east shores of Lake Okeechobee over Palm Beach and Martin County chances of storms remains elevated. 

 

Toward Central Florida, due to initially slightly lower dew points (drier air)...do not believe we will see nearly as much activity as the sea breeze pushes in. Believe that later in the day as a mid-level trough passes to the north and thickness values fall once again in response,  it will be a mid-late afternoon show, initially well inland then spreading toward the east coast after 4pm almost anywhere from Flagler County, through Volusia, Brevard, Indian River Counties and further south.  Activity could linger and/or rejuvenate after dark along the coast. If in deed the cooler air aloft remains or returns as forecast, some storms could produce strong wind gusts...with the ultimate strongest producing pea hail inland where convergence boundaries first meet, particularly over East Central portions of Florida. Most assuredly though, another post will need to be made once a later KSC sounding becomes available and I can see model data that isn't 12 hours old.

 

MONDAY: Interesting day to say the least for Central and portions of South Central Florida. Ridge axis by noon time will be almost directly overhead the center of the state with moisture aplenty and cooler temperatures aloft. At this time, it looks like the coastal waterways and near shore Atlantic Waters could have a waterspout possibility between 10:00am -12:30pm, much like further south this morning. Steering currents for the majority of the day will be close to nil...with a continued slight westerly component well aloft and above the true steering current level.

 

For the majority of the afternoon and evening this will continue to be the case, but the sea breeze will have a 'propagation toward the west' influence. Thus, tomorrow could be more like a summer day than any we will see for Central Florida for the rest of the summer of 2010. Most activity and storm motion will be dictated by outflow boundaries and Lake/Sea Breeze interactions and resultant storm propagation rather than actual motion. Most of this activity will occur away from the immediate coast once the sea breeze sets in , but Orange/Osceola/Okeechobee/Lake/inland Volusia Counties are all candidates for thunderstorm activity by early afternoon.

 

TUESDAY-WEEKEND: First off and foremost. I'm leaning toward the GFS model in this discussion. The NAM model for 3 runs now continues to advertise a very good period of rain for East Central Florida on Tuesday (as it did yesterday)...as well as turns the low now in the Bay of Campeche into something resembling what would be a hurricane. In other words and as mentioned yesterday, it's being very "hyper active" with features. This has been the case for nearly a week now. The GFS is much more subtle and preferred as the tool of use, at least from a point of reference aspect.

 

With that preface, for this period very light, drier easterly flow ensues initially. Don't believe the coast will see showers north of Ft. Pierce as outlined yesterday...but the areas further south will continue to see showers for perhaps another day or two. Might see a brief drying out of the atmosphere on Tuesday with a period of northerly winds aloft as high pressure builds in across the Deep South, but by Wednesday mid-level flow will become lighter from the east and moisture will increase ever so slightly. Light winds aloft will not prevent the West Coast sea breeze from forming...so all sorts of chaos, primarily in the late afternoon to early evening hours will be a good bet from Tampa Bay-Naples.

 

TROPICS: Only thing worth noting is the low in the Bay of Campeche. The NAM model is quite aggressive with this system and practically has it a hurricane in two days, moving into SE Texas...I'm not biting on that one. The GFS shows nothing remotely close to this. Elsewhere, nothing worth getting one's dander up over for quite some time.  It looks to me like "Formerly Gaston" has two options. Either stay a no name and continue moving west, go south of Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic (DR) and into the Yucatan...or strengthen to a depression or storm then cross Puerto Rico and the DR and die. If it gets even stronger it would curve north due to another trough that will be riding over the Deep South ridge that will be in place over Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina all week. This trough would ride over the ridge bringing another cold front to the Pilgrim/Amish States then trough on the backside of the ridge and pick up the system. Worth checking out though.

Anniversary of Hurricane David

(Image: Track of Hurricane David, 1979)

HEADLINE: Hurricane David achieved a Category 5 status in late August, 1979, as one of the strongest hurricanes to ever cross the Caribbean Sea. David wiped out the tiny island of Dominica with 150 mph winds, then came ashore the Dominican Republic at peak intensity with wind gusts over 200 mph!! 80,000 people were left homeless and 1,200 lost their lives. David was initially forecast to make landfall again near Miami as barely a Cat 1, but went nearly stationary on the night of the 2nd off the SE Florida coast near Miami... then assumed a NNW course, strengthened, and made landfall just north of West Palm Beach close to the South Brevard - Treasure Coast. It then continued north up the Florida East Coast along the A1A corridor and exited the state off the north side of the Cape. By the time of this typing the following day (Sept. 3rd), I was returning home to find numerous trees down and blown out motel marquees. Windows were blown out at the old Glass Bank. It was hard to recognize our street when we turned to go down it there was so many trees down. It appeared that the strongest winds occurred after passage of the eye. An old radar loop I found on YouTube showed a strong band of storms had wrapped around the storm and crossed the barrier islands which was probably the culprit for all the trees being uprooted and leaning toward the ENE from the WSW winds generated by that rain band. This 'pattern' was most notable at the Cocoa Beach Gulf Course where virtually all the trees clearly delineated this pattern.  At home, we were without power for about 2 days as temperatures soared. Clearing up trees without A/C and with lots of mosquitoes around was not pleasant.  It was only a month earlier that a tornado had gone down A1A in Cocoa Beach on July 9th, damaging many of the same marquees that had just recently been repaired before David's arrival. I was working at Alma's Pizza that night, and when that tornado passed a transformer blew by the old Krystal Hamburger restaurant (which was heavily damaged) near my location. The sky was lit up and a huge white funnel was easily visible as what sounded like a HUGE WATERFALL nearby rushed past. Upon meeting my brother shortly after this time (I left work due to a "sudden stomach ache"),  he remarked, "What happened?! It sounding like a friggin' freight train just went down A1A!". Back to David, in looking at Melbourne's stats, it was September 3, 1979 that the record rainfall of 5.01" inches occurred for that date (September 3rd).

 

RECAP: As mentioned in the August 30th blog post, record high temperatures could follow in the wake of Hurricane Earl under subsidence and offshore winds combined compressing the heating layer of air at the surface. On Thursday my porch got up to 96 degrees for a very short time before the sea breeze unexpectedly came up. Had it not been for the sea breeze, Thursday could have resulted in wide spread records being set. Yesterday, the sea breeze barely budged beyond US1, and as such the Melbourne NWS recorded a new all time high temperature for the date of 97 degrees.  Elsewhere, the only item of interest for the state was found over eastern portions of Palm Beach, Broward, and Dade County where some thunderstorms occurred. The first storm occurred right over the dot indicating "Miami" on the radar scope, which was followed by others that went up further north over the NE corner of Broward and SE corner of Palm Beach County (to name a few). 

 

Elsewhere, Hurricane Earl was the big news of the day in papers up and down the U.S. East Coast. As generally forecast for many days, the storm's center remained just off shore. The clown in the dunking booth basically got tired of his taunts and left.  But it was a close call. The storm looked it's most impressive on satellite presentations as it passed east of Florida.  The storm looks like a ragged old man this morning compared to it's perky, youthful appearance it had at that time as it is now a Tropical Storm and moving rapidly toward the NE and is now brushing SE Nova Scotia at 9:30AM. 

 

SYNOPSIS: Cold front has cleared the U.S. East Coast and is now draped across SE Georgia. It then becomes stationary and barely merges with the inverted trough emanating from the low pressure system in the SW Gulf referred to yesterday. Actually, this low is a little better organized this morning and has shifted southward into the SW Bay of Campeche. Due to its close proximity to land it will probably not become anything more than what it already is. Locally, Florida remains in somewhat of a COL early this morning, although the true COL region seems to have shifted to the west a bit into the far NE Gulf. Weak WSW-W flow aloft. Strong ridge building in across the Central portion of the country is strengthening SEward toward the Deep South while another Atlantic Ridge remains situated across northern Cuba and into the Florida Straits.

 

TODAY: The southern (and western) portion of the front will wash out as Earl pulls off further to the northeast (and becomes absorbed with a large low pressure area near James Bay). Meanwhile, the inverted trough will rotate west ward and approach the coastal region of SE Texas. High pressure axis to the south will be working north today, but remain to the south as it begins to enter extreme South Florida. East Central remains situated generally between all the features with a slight increase in moisture. Morning CAPE sounding at 4am showed a strong low level inversion at 2000 ft and convective temperature of 101F, PWAT had increased since this time yesterday to 1.71". Dew point temperatures are only in the low 70s in Central Florida this morning ( a good 4-7 degrees lower than what we've been seeing all summer prior to Earl). Sea breeze along the east coast should form near noon time (give or take an hour). The inversion will be slow to break, so a cumulus field probably will not even start to form until after the sea breeze begins given the low dew points and the inversion, and that will be west of the intracoastal region with the exception of the Cape. Further south from Ft Pierce to Miami is generally where the deepest moisture resides. Thus, expecting storms in many of the same locations as yesterday to start with by early-mid afternoon. By later in the day the ridge axis to the south will translate northward as the trough near the U.S. East Coast lifts slowly to the ENE. This will bring greater moisture to Central Portions, but it will probably be a "day light and dollar short" for storms to occur anywhere north of a Sarasota - Vero Beach line. There is a very small chance that the area from the Cape south along eastern portions could receive a scant chance of rain mainly east of Orlando to Yeehaw Junction.  These rains would push off the coast after sunset if they do form.

 

TOMORROW: Ridge axis lifts toward Lake Okeechobee. Frontal trough will have completely washed out, and thus this ridge will start to merge with the high pressure area now located behind this front over the middle part of the country. Moisture to increase mainly south of a line from Tampa Bay to Titusville. Similar surface wind pattern again tomorrow, with storms more likely as far north as this line in the afternoon and evening, maybe even well into the mid-evening hours which will push off the east coast. Further south, more widespread coverage from coast to coast, but extreme southern portions might get 'dry slotted' from Ft. Lauderdale south. Even if this does occur, it would be short-lived. It'll all be in the timing down there later tomorrow. Seasonable temperatures area wide.

 

MONDAY: Transition day...and get used to it. Ridge axis to lift to or just north of the Cape by sunset. Steering flow by late in the day will become close to NIL with boundary interactions with what moisture there is generating showers/storms mainly away from the coast, although late morning showers near the Cape can't be totally discounted at this point in time. Overnight Monday into Tuesday transition is complete with a light easterly flow fully in place across the state. High pressures will congeal essentially over the Deep Southeast states and remain in place all week. In essence, Monday and more so Tuesday-Thursday looks reminiscent of many times this summer where the big storms will occur from Tampa Bay to Naples late in the afternoon. It currently looks like onshore moving nocturnal showers coming off the Atlantic will be held to a minimum north of the Treasure Coast, whereas further south rains across the Keys to Palm Beach, essentially south of a Lake O line will continue.

 

The NAM, and to a much smaller degree the GFS...are indicating a weak inverted trough to penetrate East Central through SE Florida early in this period which would make a big difference in this forecast stated above as far as rain chances are concerned. The NAM has been a little 'hyper active' though lately as far as synoptic scale features around Florida are concerned, on a regular basis. Therefore, discarding the message it is conveying as far as this evolution of events unfolding.

 

TUESDAY-NEXT WEEKEND: Light easterly flow, not really conducive for Atlantic showers to make the crossing from the Gulf Stream to the east coast north of Ft Pierce. Seasonable temperatures elsewhere except maybe the west side of the state where it could be above normal. Local affects under light easterly flow will need to be watched for the keys and far SE Florida though as far as waterspouts is concerned. Daily changes in moisture availability will undoubtedly affect this portion of the outlook though. Also, the morning model runs have not been released yet which would also abet in refining this outlook.

 

TROPICS: As mentioned above, Earl is about to lay waste in the Nova Scotia Burial Grounds. Meanwhile, remnant Gaston (preferably 'Gust'on) is becoming an ever presence well out in the Atlantic with a relatively high chance of being reincarnated. For the time being the system will remain weak as it continues moving west toward the Leeward islands and Puerto Rico. It could strengthen again, but at this time if it does so would likely cross the Dominican Republic and die out...or pass north of there and find a break in the Atlantic Ridge axis and take off toward the North in fashion similar to that of Danielle. Time will tell.

 

Elsewhere, a number of other systems lie waiting in the wings with one just making it off the coast of Africa which has promised for development. And there's more to come over Africa. Perhaps one of these systems will obtain a U.S. Passport.

 

Earl's Surfing Swell A Faded Memory

(Image taken north of Canaveral Pier Thursday afternoon. This is one of the smaller waves. The larger ones weren't being surfed on because they were mainly 'closing out', but those wave looked pretty impressive regardless)

RECAP: Quite warm yesterday for a time before onshore winds developed after 1pm near the Cape. Temperature was up to 96F on my porch, the warmest it's been in quite some time, before the sea breeze. But the dew points had lowered substantially under subsidence surrounding the periphery of Hurricane Earl, so it didn't feel all so bad. Otherwise, little in precipitation state wide yesterday. I checked the surf at Satellite Beach ("RC's"), at Patrick (1st and 2nd. Light), the Cocoa Beach Pier, E 27th Street (South Cocoa Beach/Crescent Beach), and my place around sunrise where the photo above was taken later in the day. No surfers were out in the morning except at the pier but lots of folks were observing. Waves looked big every where though, but it was hard to tell just how big the waves were with no one on them. I'd bet there was some 10 foot faces out there though near Satellite Beach. I did not observe any beach erosion issues. If anything, perhaps the surf helped rebuild the beaches in the long run?

 

SYNOPSIS: Most of peninsular Florida is in a Col right now of pressure patterns. Hurricane Earl is NE of Hatteras, NC late this morning with a pressure trough trailing to the SW. A cold front is entering the NE states which trails SW into SE Texas and strong high pressure encompasses much of the country behind that boundary. The more significant features for Florida are a large mid-low level area of low pressure encompassing almost the entire SW-W Gulf of Mexico which is clearly evident on water vapor imagery. An inverted trough extends NE from this area to near the SE tip of Louisiana into the Western Florida Panhandle, and almost meeting up with the trough extending from Earl. The other feature is High Pressure centered well east of Florida with an axis extending roughly across Cuba. This last feature will eventually become the key player for our weather beyond Saturday. But until then.....

 

TODAY: The cold front approaching the Deep South at this time will eventually meet up with the inverted Gulf Low Trough by day's end. Moisture associated with these two features will stream along and south of this axis toward the Panhandle from the WSW-SW.  The high pressure over the Atlantic and across Cuba will move ever so slowly northward and draw another area of moisture toward Central and South Florida, with extreme South Florida to be the first area to see the result. As such, believe any thunderstorms or showers today will be restricted to Jupiter Inlet and points south along the East side of the state where a sea breeze convergence coupled with deeper over all  moisture (than further north just south of the other boundary mentioned above) could result in some late afternoon enhancement/moisture convergence. Some models indicate a greater resurgence of moisture to as far north as the South half of Brevard County by sunset with additional storms which might form by Lake Okeechobee to be advected toward South or perhaps Central Brevard at or after sunset as the moisture gradient works north. Temperatures aloft remain quite warm though, so the window of opportunity for rainfall from primarily Cape Canaveral South through the SE 1/2 of Osceola County and everywhere else along south Florida will likely end by 10pm as the atmosphere restabilizes after the heat of the day is lost. I'd think that any other showers/storms to continue beyond that time will be restricted to south of a line from Miami - Naples.

 

TOMORROW: The boundary (stationary by now) resulting from the cold front which will have crossed the mid-West States and much of the Deep South as well, combined with the inverted trough from the Gulf, will essentially be stretched out and interspliced down the middle by the Atlantic Ridge still situated to the far south near the Florida Straits or perhaps as far north as Miami. The remnants will be situated across extreme North Central Florida just south of St. Augustine. During the course of the day moisture at all levels will on the increase, primarily along and north of the boundary, with greater moisture continuing to increase from the south, which by afternoon should encompass all of South Florida to as far north as a Port Charlotte to near Jupiter Inlet. By day's end the entire peninsula will fill in. Sea breeze boundaries should have no problem establishing tomorrow with a predominate storm motions from WSW-ENE over top the ridge axis and south of the waning trough axis across North Florida, with Central Florida sandwiched in between the two boundaries. Thus, a better chance of showers and thunderstorms almost any time from late morning through the evening due to the standard fare of summer like unfolding of events during the course of a normal summer day.

 

This could also be a big day for surf rescues. The weather along the coast should be nice for East Central Florida in the late morning, and that combined with the beginning of a surf festival and the start of a Holiday Weekend will bring the beach goers to the coast in flocks and into the water now that the seas have subsided. But beware, all sorts of gouges from the big waves of the past two days will have created huge breaks in the sandbar which will result in a continuation of rip currents.

 

SUNDAY: High pressure ridge axis to the south continues to lift north toward Central Florida with a decrease in steering flow across the Central portion of the state. Otherwise, thunder is likely about any where. Details as to where this will be most likely still need to be sorted out, but for now suffice it to say pretty much everywhere. High coverage not expected though since temperatures aloft will remain warmer than what could otherwise result in widespread storm coverage if they were cooler.

 

MONDAY: Transition to onshore flow regime once again as the high pressure moves north through the day. Maybe a chance of storms along the intracoastal around noon, but it looks like everything will be steered toward the west by the end of the day as high pressure builds both aloft and at the surface over the SE U.S.

 

TUESDAY-BEYOND: Onshore flow continues with the greatest likelihood of storms over all of South Florida (roughly south of a West Palm Beach - Ft. Myers line). Periods of on-shore moving rain showers (mainly nocturnal which is typical of very early fall) to commence. As we look beyond, this pattern could hold for QUITE sometime to come, at least a week. Thus, after this weekend and maybe Monday, East Central Florida might be seeing its last of the normal summertime thunderstorm regime, with perhaps one last effort of two day extent as we approach the 15th-22nd of September timeframe.

 

TROPICS: Earl has passed North Carolina with little consequence other than inconvenience to all those who evacuated and flooding along Highway 12 on Hatteras island (from last I heard). The skies are in the process of rapidly clearing from south to north as the system moves off to the NNE. It looks unlikely the system will ever make direct landfall on any U.S. state, although Nantucket could be just as close to the center, if not closer than Hatteras ever was.  The biggest precipitation threat will likely be over Maine where it begins to interact with the approaching front...but the winds by then will have decreased even more by the time it gets there...not only because of wind shear but because it will be crossing much cooler waters as it approaches Nantucket. As Earl digs its own grave and becomes wrapped up in the large continental system rains in Maine will begin well before the storm approaches over far down east Maine after sunset tonight and continue as the front pushes through  until Saturday night.

 

Gaston had a short life, but the hurricane center as well as some of the models are not willing to give it up just yet. The latest released from the NHC gives it a better chance of returning from the grave than last nights outlook. But this system will remain a zombie storm for many days to come, so speculation will abound concerning whether or not it will ever be anything more than one of the living dead. We should know for sure within 48 hours.

Light Offshore Wind At Canaveral At Sunrise

Image: Hurricane Earl East of Central Florida with Fiona on its wings

 

QUICK SPOT MORNING POST:

Hurricane Earl is now located just north of due east of Daytona Beach this morning prior to sunrise. Very light northerly gradient winds which appear to be more of a straight out  drainage flow down the spine of the state are translating to a slight offshore component (from the NW) along the immediate coast. Just checked the surf in Canaveral where the wind is barely detectable. No beach erosion at my locale, but the waves are monstrous with long lines. The NWS and latest wave model indicates the swell will peak during the next 6 hours and will remain elevated today.

 

The outer most cloud bands of the system are visible along the eastern horizon, as are some spotty showers over the offshore waters.

A  full post will be made later this morning as there are numerous items of meteorological interest to discuss for the days ahead, including those related to Tropical Storm Gaston.

 

 

Earl's Swirl Sweetens Swell's Swell

(...don't go out beyond the waist)

SYNOPSIS: High pressure that was centered over Virginia is now offshore but arching west then WSW over the mid-Atlantic Coast and across N. Georgia. Florida is beginning to get caught in weak pressure gradient flow between the approach of Earl and this ridge axis. "Moisturely" speaking, the air mass in general is quite dry other than the lowest 7K feet. Other than slight variability in the depth of this moisture ...little will change today as surface winds will remain ENE-NE throughout the day. Timing of any rain showers that might manage to eke out a shower within convergent bands is contingent upon when/where the the moisture depth fluctuates up a few notches...which is most difficult to do outside of 3-6 hours.

 

TODAY: Lake Wind and High Surf Advisories are in affect for all of Central Florida. The approach of 'Earl the Swirl' is easily evident by even the most unacknowledged when viewing Local on the 8s on The Weather Channel. It can be seen by a massive cloud shield on the far right hand side of your television screen.  Other than some intervals of light showers which will be periodically spread far apart (in roughly 6 hour intervals)...the weather today will be benign with a steady state ENE-NE wind at 12-22mph with a few higher gusts.

 

THURSDAY: BIG SURF DAY! Looks like hands down this will be the day for big surf. But size isn't everything...so they say. Interestingly, the latest wave model I looked at showed the peak of the swell to occur right after Earl's passage directly east of Central Florida to occur almost totally coincident with the peak high tide. Double pennants are flying which indicate "swim at your own risk". Not sure why anyone would went to go in very deep (beyond the waist) in such conditions..although I must admit the view of the waves is incredibly different when you're actually in the water than it is from a safe, elevated distance. Additionally, only the experienced and stronger surfers will be able to paddle out to the outside break beyond the inside break (or breaks). Weather wise, believe if any showers are to exist Thursday they will be right on the coast east of I-95 where some shallow moisture at 7000 ft and below could generate some diaper rash type shower coverage from time to time. Might also be able to see the solid cloud shield from Earl right along the far eastern horizon, but I'm thinking that it will be to far away to break over that sunrise line.  As far as heavy duty rain is concerned though, not a threat or even a possibility.

 

LATE THURSDAY TOWARD SUNSET GUYS AND GALS! This will probably be THE BEST time to be surfing if one is experienced and can make it out beyond the shore break. Peak low tide will be just after sunset and as we approach sunset the winds should let up and be nearly straight side shore from the north or NNE by relatively light compared to the past few days. Not too good for First Peak Sebastian Inlet surfers but all other locales should be crankin'. Given what the tides will be, I leave to only the most experienced surfers to figure for themselves when and where they'd like to be..and will remain tight lipped about where those areas are that produce the most favorable of surfing conditions. It's going to be a "regular footers" heaven, not that the talented backside Goofy Footers  won['t be in oceanic bliss as well. You know who you are and where to go...other's don't have any business venturing into the surf anyway...lest we hear about another "Surfer from Ocoee, Fl" incident. Be real! I wonder if such an individual practices up at the mall-wave-machine in Orlando or Typhoon Lagoon.

 

SUNRISE-NOON FRIDAY: Winds off shore as they will go from near calm to a slight offshore component over night. If anyone still wants to get the good waves, or what's left of them, I'd be at the beach before sunrise. The tide will be fully low within an hour or two after sunrise making for some potentially good breaks produced by the by this time rapidly waning swells produced during the course of the day Thursday. The wind might remain offshore all day, but the swell will rapidly decrease throughout the day, just in time for the Kidney Foundation Contest to begin (figures!).  By noon time we will be right back to where we were at yesterday with a fun surf size suitable for most everyone. But rip currents will remain a threat, thus leading to a fatal combination.

 

Back to the weather. Expecting it to get quite warm Friday and Saturday afternoons with highs in the low-mid 90s pretty much everywhere.  As Earl moves north just offshore the U.S. Coastline a ridge of high pressure will build westward from the Atlantic across extreme S. Florida accompanied by tropical atmospheric moisture. This ridge will slowly lift north during the weekend as will the moisture coverage. With a remaining westerly component wind in the mid-levels thunderstorms will be possible mainly from Ft. Pierce and south Friday late, then from Oak Hill - Sanford-Brooksville south on Saturday and Sunday.  As all this is going on the mid-upper level trough which is preventing Earl from fully penetrating the dune lines along the Mid-Atlantic Coast line (as it seems will be)...will be accompanied by a surface trough (I.e., a cold front) which will work into South Georgia in much the same fashion as the previous front behaved. Similarly, it will never make it south of perhaps St. Augustine, if even, as we work into early next week.

 

THIS LEADS US TO THE EXTENDED WEATHER OUTLOOK: It's going to be a little bit of 'forecast chaos' for many periods ahead as we head into full bore early fall climatological conditions. I'd consider this to be the period when East Central Florida fluctuates between a one or two day period of potential thunderstorms alternating with an onshore penetrating ocean shower regime, with general 'benigness' in between those periods. Most chances of thunderstorms over Central Florida greatly wane by the last week of September overall. But, South Central - South Florida - Keys will have the greater likelihood of continued thunderstorms, and the Keys could see an uptick in the amount of waterspouts sighted as we head through September and into October.  Otherwise, already foresee forecasting issues not only with timing of the easterly ocean shower regime but also with the tropics as we shift toward a more local Caribbean to Gulf of Mexico tropical storm formation period later in the month and into October.

 

TROPICS: We all know about Earl, so as the NWS Melbourne eloquently stated a few days ago, the storm makes for great "forecasting fodder"...but I'd say it makes for even greater NEWS MEDIA FODDER. No shortage of sows feeding on the oats of news stories, real and assuredly exaggerated.  One measured gust of 80 mph or a house de-roofed leads always goes from "singular" to "plural".  With that aside, it currently appears that the Outer Banks of North Carolina and Nantucket will experience Earl's greatest muscle power.  The media and NWS are going to be on their knees though when the final hours arrive if the storm's center is within 100 miles of any coast. Any little wobble the storm makes will make an exceptionally major big difference.

 

And since these storms do not follow a straight line as it appears they do when follow news casts...any fluctuation at the wrong place could mean the difference between a wind gust strong enough to remove a poorly constructed roof -- or not.  Tidal surge will be a big impact in the most favorably contoured geographical zones.  Beyond Earl, we'll be hearing about Fiona if it still exists. It's what follows that we need to keep ears perked for off and on. Already the GFS Model is showing signs of development near the Bay of Campeche. Last nights run brought a named system across Cuba and into SW Florida beyond two weeks from now. Of course, the later model run showed no such entity, but just the fact that the model is showing the possibility indicates this yet to be evolution of circumstances conducive for such.

Small Portion Of Southeast Florida Gets Pounded By Rains

(Image: Rain shower moving onshore Cocoa Beach early Sunday Morning)

RECAP: Rain showers eventually hit a broad expanse of landscape yesterday across South and Central Florida with most totals below 1/4". On the other hand - - Polk, Hillsborough, and Pinellas Counties further west received some reports of over 1 inch while extreme eastern portions of Palm Beach and Broward Counties had much higher totals. The overall winner of the blue ribbon goes to a small area in Palm Beach County where the last total which came in was from Boynton Beach at 5.77" shortly after 10pm last night. It's likely that this total is closer to 6" by now though as rain was still falling in the vicinity at 11pm. There might have been a break in the action over night, but when I woke this morning a weak convergent band was pressing onshore very near there from the east...but with closer investigation it appears that this band might be just south of Boynton Beach toward Delray Beach.  It was quite bizarre to watch radar animations yesterday, as the very select area being impacted by the persistent rains, and at a few times pretty intense lightning storms simply could not penetrate west of perhaps 20 miles of I-95. They would get so far and simply erode while in the meantime the storms kept regenerating just to the east over and over again.  I noted yesterday via radar loops and infrared satellite imagery that a weak sfc-mid level low seemed to form off the coast of Vero which moved almost due south (off shore) with time.  The biggest storms near Boynton went up ahead of this feature in the early evening producing quite a bit of lightning, but they moved very little if at all.  Since then, that circulation is not apparent at this time.  Otherwise this morning, there was another streamer of showers coming in very close to Miami as well as one just barely making it on shore close to Jupiter Island. Elsewhere, rains have been moving in on western portions of the Panhandle and a very weak squiggly line of rainshowers, perhaps not even reaching the ground were crossing Volusia County near Daytona. Their latest surface observation did not indicate even light rain, even though radar shows a tiny green reflection right over the airport.

 

TODAY: Really not much to talk about for MANY days to come (but see the TROPICS para). As noted above, there were two distinct convergence streams in progress impacting solely SE Florida, not to discount the lowers keys though from roughly Islamorada west. High pressure will reign supreme up and down the entire Eastern Seaboard of the U.S. For the most part, all of Central Florida will be rain free today under the influence of a drying air mass and a fresh easterly wind.  Rains over SE Florida will gradually shift further south and west during the day. This could take quite a while though...so folks from Boynton Beach south to south of Miami and into the Kendall area will continue to receive rains and some thunder until at least midafternoon...eroding from the north with time as we work into the evening.  Toward the west side of the state, some showers and thunderstorms will again be possible from Tampa Bay to south of Naples...right along the west coast.

 

TONIGHT-TUESDAY: There is some indication that a few patches of atmospheric moisture could move across the state any time between 7pm tonight to before noon tomorrow. Even if this materializes, the worst we would see from this is enhanced periods of cloudiness and a very light, short period spritz of rain but in general partly cloudy will prevail.

 

WEDNESDAY - AT LEAST SATURDAY: Generally dry across the boards, especially for the immediate Central Florida area. See more under the TROPICS portion.

 

TROPICS: Hurricane Earl as of 8am was strengthening with winds of 110mph. Motion is officially WNW at 14mph, but when I looked at radar animations from Puerto Rico the eye seemed to moving move toward the NW rather than WNW. But in general a WNW to NW variable track will continue today. Extreme NE PR will be coming quite close to experiencing hurricane force winds later today into tonight, especially over the higher terrain on that side of the island near the Air Force Station at Roosevelt Roads to Fajardo and Rio Grande. Folks in the condos in those regions toward San Juan will be in for an interesting experience tonight into early tomorrow.

 

Earl's Future Track: No need for Florida to fret, but unlike Danielle, Earl will come close enough (to the far Eastern Bahamas) to have a direct meteorological and oceanic impact.  Upon Earl's approach to the far eastern Bahamas Florida we could receive one last short-lived swap of moisture wrapping around the periphery outside the subsidence zone surrounding the storm late Tuesday. This would be of very short duration though...and shower chances from this are very low end. These would be of low topped nature and not thunderstorms except maybe near the Keys or extreme SW Florida. As we work into Wednesday surface winds might become light and variable for time..but generally from the east. Eventually winds will take on a more assured NNEly component as Florida enters the 'zone of subsidence' around the system. It is while we are in this zone that seas will be at peak performance, with rip currents and wave action being more pronounced than those ever with Danielle.  Additionally, Earl could be just as strong or even stronger than Danielle during its passage east of Florida. Over night temperatures may seem a little unusually warm as will daytime high temps, especially on Thursday and Friday.  To mention in passing, high temperatures might get near records values as winds take on a more NWly component. Rain chances during this time will essentially be zero. I expect folks will want to flock to the beaches, especially from the Cape to Jacksonville to view the waves under such benign weather conditions coupled with the press amping up the storm up, especially if the anticipated strengthening of the system materializes which could take it up to Category 4. But in speaking from experience, there will be little to see, but watching the surfers, especially on Thursday morning, could be fun where the waves break just right. Not anticipating erosion issues at this time in other words. I'd head to Sebastian or Spanish House ...in hopes that waves bouncing off the jetty do not make First Break a washing machine. Further north along Satellite Beach at the old RCs break might be quite nice as well as at New Smyrna Beach, all contingent upon timing of the tides with a gradually backing surface winds (to offshore) from Wednesday into Thursday and maybe early Friday as the system pulls further north.

 

The bigger story for Earl will be, and for the most part already is, its brush with the coast from Hatteras - Maine. Not one model this morning brings the system fully onshore, as an upper level trough will gratefully be passing across the Great Lakes region and heading toward the coast in perfect timing to perhaps be a saving grace from total mayhem. With that said, Earl is going to be the irritating clown in the dunking booth...taunting and teasing local weather forecasters up and down the mid-Atlantic to New England Coast line as to just exactly how great the storm's direct impact will be.

 

INVEST 97L: This system is nothing more than a big forecast headache for now, so won't elaborate much. This is the system that is not so fondly already being referred to in some circles as Fiona. I liked "Friona" better. As a friend pointed out to me, Friona, TX was hit by a tornado many years ago that made for some great video. I have it in the collection somewhere. As mentioned yesterday, the ECMWF brought this system into East Central Florida, but a later run took it completely SOUTH of the state. Now, last night's run takes it on a course similar to Earl's whereas the GFS still does not develop the system at all beyond a 'depressed' state (not named). The NAM run shows a similar tendency. If this is to be the case, the system would not pose any threat whatsoever in any form to the U.S. Thus, at this point, until the system becomes even better organized and gets a distance away from Earl any talk is total conjecture. At this point, the system is pretty darned close to Earl, so I can see why the NAM and GFS, and to some degree that latest ECMWF are depicting what they do. It's still early morning though as of this writing, so it will be interesting to see what the 12Z (8am) runs are showing later this morning.

Not a Beach Day!

(Image: An ocean shower off East Central Florida Saturday Afternoon)

 

RECAP: Weather evolved yesterday pretty much as expected, ending with a bang near Tampa Bay around 11pm. Otherwise, the only real precipitation that did develop was along an apparent thermal gradient boundary, perhaps enhanced by the geography of the Cape during the late afternoon hours. The boundary developed as a result of extensive cloudiness across the north 1/2 of the state which was referred to yesterday morning which never dispersed during the course of the day. South of the clouds the surface temperature really heated up with very light winds even along the coast. The temperature at one point on my porch was up to 94 degrees which is nearly 10 degrees warmer that points further north and under the clouds. The rain showers set up running ENE-WSW over North Cape through Titusville and into Orange County. One heavier shower rolled easily along and south of the boundary seemingly hugging the thermal gradient as it rolled into extreme NE Osceola County. Elsewhere, the storms of the day much later were from near Naples to North Tampa Bay with the majority of them not really getting going until they were just off the west coast other than near Tampa Bay and Port Charolette where they experienced a heavy storm late in the evening. There was one rampant storm over Ft Lauderdale though with a reported wind gust of 43mph in the late afternoon which quickly 'dispersed' as it moved off toward the SW Coast.

 

SYNOPSIS: Strong high pressure along the U.S. East Coast from New England to South Georgia impinging on the Florida NE Coast this morning. Showers and a few lightning strikes have occurred well offshore the Florida East Coast which to this point have generally remained in the same place but are slowly spreading west toward the coast from Jacksonville to just south of West Palm. A few showers have already made it on shore of light-moderate intensity.  Meanwhile, the low pressure area in the Gulf came ashore in a much weakened state on extreme SW Louisiana and is now moving northward around the western periphery of the high pressure system. Satellite imagery also depicts another mid-level cyclonic circulation of weaker organization moving rapidly north through East Central Mississippi with an attendant surface boundary extending East then SE from it which is now crossing Central Alabama. This is the old stationary boundary that was across I-10 yesterday.  Meanwhile, the high pressure over the mid-Atlantic states centered near Virginia is working south along the coastline.  There is a concentrated area of enhanced moisture along the leading edge of this 'backdoor front' as it works toward the SW which is still offshore Central and South Florida as of this writing, however a convergence boundary seems to be getting established over immediate Ft Pierce. Moderate-heavy showers have been continuously redeveloping at that point.

 

There was somewhat of a surface wind 'surge' of sorts over portions of East Central Florida early this morning accompanied by some brief rain showers which developed as a result of outflow from collapsing storms well off shore. This 'surge' of sorts has since passed well to the West of the immediate coast. Winds picked up for a good hour during its passage with some gusts just over 20 mph right along the A1A corridor, and since that time have remained a bit stronger on the beaches than what they were at sunrise. They seem to be dying down though even more as I write.

 

TODAY: For the most part the more focused area of showers and a few lightning strikes will remain offshore, but continue to impact the Ft. Pierce area for a while longer. In the meantime, the leading edge of higher pressure where the deepest moisture is concentrate will be forced on shore during the early afternoon, roughly sometime between 1:00-3:00pm.  Just because this moisture will be moving over does not imply that it will rain everywhere that it exists overhead. As is often the case with a moist and steady onshore flow...very thin convergent/concentrated moisture bands can set up resulting in a steady stream of showers in one locale while nearby the sun will remain shining or nearly so. This is already in process ...and with some more heating of the day combined with short term visible satellite imagery loops (movies) these boundaries will become any such boundaries will become more evident. The best chances of rain today outside of what is occurring now for Central and South Central East Florida will be from 1:30pm -9pm this evening with clearing from north to south as we head toward sunset and into the overnight hours. Again, some folks might not see rain at all today whereas others might see quite a bit. Outside of any bands that might happen to set up (these are not guaranteed) there will be a wide spattering of rampant, light showers across the peninsula. Not expecting thunder and lightning today over the majority of the state other than extreme Southwest Florida on the west side of Lake O and points west to as far north as the immediate Tampa Bay where their morning sounding came in quite unstable once again.

 

TONIGHT INTO TOMORROW: The very thin moisture surge will pass west and south of Central Florida during the night and into early tomorrow and exist primarily from St. Lucie County and points south along the East Coast initially and into Okeechobee, Martin, and Palm Beach Counties. As the day progresses it will continue SW and thin out, exiting the state by late evening. In it's wake is much drier air through the atmosphere with the only moisture remaining in the lowest levels. As such, by tomorrow afternoon expecting only a few very isolated, light low-topped showers to move onshore north of this boundary toward the Cape which will not make it much further west than the US1-I95 corridor. The likelihood of even these renegade showers will henceforth decrease even more by late afternoon with remaining rains and possible thunderstorms all south of Central Florida and will be focused primarily over the extreme western portions from Sarasota and points south by late evening.

 

TUESDAY-FRIDAY: Looks dry with seasonable temperatures and weakening surface winds. But, see the TROPICAL section below.

 

TROPICS: Hurricane Danielle is long gone...but the long duration offshore swells continue, creating very hazardous swimming conditions due to the rip currents produced by them. Those, along with the ever present possibility of rain showers and off/on periods of cloud cover along the coast will not make for a good beach day. In Cape Canaveral this morning the waves did not look impressive to any degree whatsoever..but that's Cape Canaveral for you. There is no erosion occurring. There was a drowning yesterday 1 mile south of PAFB (Satellite Beach) of a 'surfer' as has been widely publicized by the news media. Another one was up at Ocean City. I'd be willing to bet he wasn't a very experienced 'surfer', but regardless anyone should take heed if planning on entering the water today despite the less than favorable weather conditions for even being on the beach in the first place.

 

EARL: Shortly before beginning to type this morning's post, Earl was officially proclaimed a hurricane as it approaches the northern Leeward Islands. Virtually every model is forecasting a curve to the NW right as it bears down on Puerto Rico. I'd be willing to bet that the island could experience some Tropical Storm force winds...but it will be close. It IS worth watching Earl despite the forecasts to see if it starts to take the curve or not, because if it actually crosses the island and continues a WNW course that would mean it will be in the process of diverting the split in the ridge to its north which has been enhanced by Danielle's passing. If it does this all forecasts as to its future track can be thrown out with the trash...but as is forecasted officially by the Hurricane Center and all models there has been no change in thinking as to the storm taking the curve. There has been debate amongst the models as to just how close this storm will approach the coasts of N. Carolina up to New England though and the jury is still out on this to some degree. For the most part it appears, as things stand now, that Earl's biggest threat to the U.S. Mainland will be larger and more treacherous surf conditions than those posed by Danielle as we head toward Wednesday. Folks from Hatteras to Cape Cod need to keep watching this sytem, flat out.

 

If Earl does indeed stay off shore as forecast, it will be closer to the U.S. than Danielle ever was with similar intensity, hence the waves and rip tides will again be of prime concern. Assuming it passes in such proximity, the weather over Florida would remain very dry and possibly quite warm under subsidence surrounding the storm as winds become light and eventually NNE then NNW-W as it gets north of our latitude here in Florida.  This could play havoc for lifeguards! With such benign weather occurring and warm temperatures...the flocks could be heading for the cooling ocean waters to get the toes wet. Hope they don't do anymore that soak the toes though...lest they get 'undertowed'.

 

WILL THERE BE A FIONA TOO?: Starting to look that way. In fact, as I posted to Facebook this morning, last night's ECMWF Model actually brings what would be Storm Fiona onshore East Florida very near Satellite Beach in Brevard County on the evening of September 6th. That's 'hurricasting' for you. At one point, the GFS model brought what was yet to be even named Danielle into Daytona Beach.  Also, the latest track models take this Invest along a course similar to what is being currently forecast for Earl. It wouldn't hurt to point out though that this year the Euro and to some degree the Canadian models have had a better track record on the tropics this year than the GFS one. Which reminds me, last night's GFS model does not even acknowledge the existence of a named Fiona, but rather loosely associates it with Earl as a 'tag along' entity. This seems pretty darned unlikely though...as seldom if ever does this occur. Hence, and as noted a few posts ago, what is now being labeled as a 'vigorous tropical wave' may soon be declared a depression later today which would henceforth be named "Fiona" if what is being consensually forecast by other models materializes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ENE Flow Regime Slowly Becoming Established Today

(Image: Forecast of surface features for Sunday morning from the 8pm run of the NAM are depicted)

RECAP: Glad there was an update to yesterday mornings post because the early-late evening rainfalls definitely occurred over portions of Central Florida yesterday/last night. The heaviest storms were over portions of Lake County and western Orange County with one report of 4.23" which came in from Winter Garden in Orange County....and a special weather statement of a possible funnel was disseminated for one of the Lake County storms. Elsewhere, almost all of Osceola County was eventually encompassed with a broad area of light-moderate rains.  There was one lone heavy shower that passed over North Brevard near Mims/Titusville before sunset. Further west much more rain was to be found with big totals. Some of these rain remnants eventually piddled to the east coast providing for a few rain spits along the immediate coastal communities around midnight. Other activity formed along the immediate east shores of Lake Okeechobee during the mid afternoon hours.

 

SYNOPSIS: Most notable features this morning are the ever expanding/strengthening high pressure centered over Virginia and a surface/mid-level low just off the Louisiana coast which first made its presence known yesterday along that inverted trough which was extending from the low in the far SW Gulf.  The hurricane center has outlined this low with a very low probability of further tropical development, and all models are depicting this to be the case. Extending from this low is what remains of the stationary boundary which has been over Southern Georgia for quite some time now.  The old circulation of what I've been referring to remnant TD5 is finally gone, or perhaps is what generated that low off Louisiana. Probably not, but just like the number of licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop...the world may never know (who cares anyway...right?). This boundary has sunk south a bit and is now roughly located right along I-10. The southwest flow aloft is gone now for the most part..and mid-level winds over Central Florida are very light. 

 

LOCALLY: There also appears to be a weak disturbance riding ENE across N. Central Florida  along or just south of the weakening stationary frontal boundary which is accompanied by a fairly extensive deck of cloudiness across the same area from near Brooksville on the West Coast to Ormond Beach on the East Coast. This area of clouds is trying to penetrate toward Orlando but seems to be getting eroded from the bottom up as it reaches Orange County. Further north it is making it to the coast though. The high pressure ridge that was over the Florida Straits is almost overhead and in the process of merging with the high pressure circulation over the mid-Atlantic. I haven't seen a morning sounding as it was not available but I'd be willing to bet that winds wise there isn't much to see that would sway me from making the following forecast for the daylight hours of today.

 

SYNOPTIC OUTLOOK: The low south of Louisiana will push toward the coast right about where SE Texas and SW Louisiana meet. This will force the stationary frontal boundary northward along with abundant moisture into southern Louisiana, which for the most part has already begun. Hence, some big rains over the toes of the Big Boot State are on-going late this morning and will continue to do so through the day and evening. Meanwhile, further east high pressure will strengthen more along the Northeast and mid-Atlantic coast and expand southward. In turn, the far eastern portion of the stationary boundary along I-10 will inversely push SWard toward the Florida NE Coast and eventually the central portions of the coast over night tonight.  This boundary will washout over southern portions of the state on Monday as the high pressure comes fully under control  by mid-day Monday for the entire peninsula except extreme SW portions.

 

TODAY: Surface winds across the entire state to assume a generally ENE-Eerly wind component at the surface while mid level winds become light and variable over Central Florida. There is still plentiful moisture. Believe the easterlies will become somewhat enhanced during the afternoon which will be most notable along the A1A corridor up and down the entire Florida Coast which will push without hindrance toward the west half of the state during the course of the day. As such, storms, some with very heavy rains and frequent lightning, will mostly likely affect the Western Half of the state from the Everglades northward to just west of Orange County and over the Tampa Bay region, although western Lake County can't be fully counted out for some of this activity. Expect most of the show to commence in the mid-late afternoon with max storm coverage running from right before sunset through midnight. Further north toward Jacksonville the stationary boundary will start to enter the Jacksonville area as it begins a SSW trek down the coast to well offshore.  Thus, extreme NE Florida will be in the 'muck' of clouds and rains for most of the day.  From Daytona Beach south to Miami it will be a pleasant day other than some rampant coastal showers moving on shore, particularly south of West Palm. Unlike the past two evenings, the activity to the west will not spread eastward. Therefore, for the most part all of East Central/South Florida will remain dry all day into tonight.

 

OVERNIGHT INTO SUNDAY: NOT a beach day from Brevard and points north tomorrow but nice for the attractions inland. The backdoor boundary of sorts will remain to the north, but slowly increasing easterlies off shore could push some nocturnal rain showers on to the coast from the Cape northward. The likelihood of this evolution increases around sunrise and increases even more as we work toward noon. The front shown in the attached image which was derived from the NAM model is probably a little over done, but you get the gist. It's likely this boundary will never make a clean passage over the area at the surface, but rather simply become absorbed in the deepening ENE-E flow aloft late in the day.  The morning NAM is consistent though with maintaining somewhat elevated rain chances  throughout the daylight hours from Brevard County northward. This does not appear to be an all day rain event, but more of an occasional shower event whereas areas to the west are much more likely to remain dry.  By late in the day showers will spread WSW to the west coast. The best chance of thunderstorms tomorrow will likely be right along the SW Coast of the state where a late afternoon sea breeze could develop and thus low level convergence is established.  It won't only be the chances of rain showers that won't make it a good beach day...it will also be the rip currents and ugly surf (as far as swimming is concerned).

 

SUNDAY NIGHT INTO MONDAY: The surface boundary, or what remains of it washes out to South Florida while lingering moisture and an onshore wind component maintains a possibility of nocturnal rain showers making landfall all along the east coast which could penetrate well inland. Monday could start out showery but that chance decreases by late in the day.

 

TUESDAY-THURSDAY: Pretty darned uneventful with rip currents being the big weather story. Actually, by around Wednesday - Thursday what will be Hurricane Earl could be close enough to the east to place much of the state in subsidence around the storm's periphery making for less clouds but warm inland temperatures.

 

FRIDAY-NEXT SUNDAY: Watching the next tropical system to rotate around the Carousel of Storms which models are portraying to be Storm Friona. Lips might be pursed and brows furrowed as forecasts are showing this system to become quite strong as it approaches the U.S. Coast.

 

TROPICS/SURFERS: Hurricane Danielle is out of the picture weather wise, but the swells from this storm are beginning to impact the east coast. Looks like the peak of the swells will be later this afternoon into early tomorrow. SURFS UP GUYS! Unfortunately, onshore winds will not provide for the primest of conditions, so hit it early especially Sunday and Monday. It will be totally ride-able though for many days to come so stock up on the Sex Wax.

 

With Danielle eventually accelerating off to the NE in the open Atlantic eyes will be on what looks to be Hurricane Earl by this time tomorrow. Earl is forecast to move just north of Puerto Rico Sunday into Monday and slowly begin a more WNW (and eventually NW) curve as it does so. The GFS is forecasting Earl to strengthen significantly as it passes north of the island and heads toward the extreme SE Bahamas. The curve would be due to a weakening of the high pressure ridge to its north created by Danielle. If forecast trends continue the ocean swells will be more direct, and thus more impressive than those of Danielle along the East Coast from Florida-Hatteras. Thus, after a decline in the surf early in the week it will again pick up with Earl.

 

Now, the next pony on the carousel is forecast to be what would be named Friona. This will be THE STORY OF THE DAY if all amounts to what models are depicting. Each successive storm is inching closer to the U.S., and Friona is no different. As it stands now the big threat will be directly on the Carolinas-Virginia. But we know how that goes. Heck, the system as a named entity exist yet...but my bet is we will hearing the name over the air waves within 72 hours. For now it is being described the the Hurricane Center as a "vigorous disturbance". Don't know how 'vigorous' a disturbance can be..but with a high likelihood that it will organize into a tropical low...I guess this cuts the mustard better than describing it as 'mild'.