Florida Weather

[northjaxpro]

Temps holding steady in the mid 50s currentlyand will likely stay there all day. we have a strong nor'easter today on the First Coast as the back door front slipped through Northeast Florida late yesterday. Northeast winds are gusting over 30 mph at the coast since last night. Strong Polar High (1041 mb over New England) is wedging down the Eastern U.S. seaboard. The front has stalled out acorss Central Florida peninsula. Measured just under 1/2 inch of rain overnight into this morning. Need much more rain.

We will have one more transient front over this upcoming Easter weekend to keep at or slightly below seasonable averages. However, I feel very confident that we saw our last frost of this season last week. I will finally start the spring garden planting at long last.

GFS is advertising potential 90 degree + temps going into the first week of April over portions of the peninsula. Here comes the potential summer preview of heat...............

[psyclone]

Crazy temp spread with low to mid 50's over northeast florida while tampa bay is in the 80's. 65 at Ocala and 79 at Brooksville...seems the front must reside between those two locations. Glad to be on the warm side of the tracks..

[Patrick99]

Back under the influence of the SW Atlantic ridging, but at least we've got a strong E-NE component to it, keeping things comfortable for now. 80 degrees with a brisk NE wind isn't so bad.

[NDG]

The long fire season has begun. I-95 near New Smyrna was shut down because of a wild fire, this is even after a good couple of rainy days a week ago in this area. It does not take long for the sun to dry things out quickly this time of the year.

[northjaxpro]

Yeah, this does not bode well heading deeper into Spring.I pray we are not looking at a 1998 scenario around here when we had devastating wildfires across North and Central Florida.

[boca]

Miami has only had 1.57 of rain since January 1st and this area is the driest in the state.According to the national weather service we are in the top five driest winters since they began records.Their are wildfires all over South Florida especially on the west coast and it will only get worse.

https://www.weather.gov/mfl/drought_info

[MetroMike]

This map of the Keetch byram drought index does not look accurate for West-Central FL IMO.
Not that I can back up my claim ,but appears much more severe than is shown here. With the hot February and abnormally low dew points in March.

http://currentweather.freshfromflorida. ... index.html

[gatorcane]

The anticipated severe Florida fire season looks to have begun. Late April through late May should get real interesting as the heat cranks up before the rainy season begins.

[psyclone]

This map of the Keetch byram drought index does not look accurate for West-Central FL IMO.
Not that I can back up my claim ,but appears much more severe than is shown here. With the hot February and abnormally low dew points in March.

http://currentweather.freshfromflorida. ... index.html

It takes a long time for the benefits of rain to disappear from the Keetch Byram maps. for west central florida we're still floating on goodwill from heavy rains in late January and early feb. South florida didn't benefit from that. nevertheless it has since been dry and we're curing fuels quickly now under the strong sun. the freeze plus Irma mean fuel loads are high this year

[Patrick99]

The anticipated severe Florida fire season looks to have begun. Late April through late May should get real interesting as the heat cranks up before the rainy season begins.

Yeah, we are in the weather crap shoot that is a South Florida spring. Many years, we are bone dry. Some years, we get a little severe weather. Occasionally, we get a good stalled front that diminishes our fire season. Who knows. I doubt we will get much severe weather, as that seems to be more of an El Nino-like thing where a subtropical jet induces convective complexes over the Gulf that move into our area. Doubt it, but I can hope, as I'm starting to miss thunderstorms.

[psyclone]

year to date rainfall for some florida cities:

Miami 1.38"
Ft Myers 2.04"
Tampa 7.71"
Melbourne 3.17"
Orlando 2.46"
Daytona 6.80"
Jacksonville 5.37"
Tallahassee 5.93"
Pensacola 13.30"

South Florida is the most dry with the east central areas trending a good bit drier than west central.
Incidentally there's a pretty good line of showers creeping toward the west coast but i have my doubts as to whether or not we get anything decent from it. At least there's something besides chaff showing on the radar..

[boca]

I think here in Southern Florida we will be equal or drier than the 1998 season.We are too far south to get influenced by mid latitude system this time of year and systems that come near usually dissipate before arriving.

[northjaxpro]

It has been a very dry start to 2018. January was cold and wet, almost El Nino like conditions, but then definitely we were realizing La Nina conditions as February was extremely dry with record warmth for the peninsula. The pattern flipped during March in which the polar jet dipped south most of the month across the Eastern CONUS, bringing cooler, but dry weather with northwest comtinental flow.

I took a peek long range and it looks as if the dry and cooler pattern may continue well into April. Looks as if the NAO seemingly is still in a negative phase, although is forecast to be neutral going into April.

It is possible dry and cooler than average pattern over the Eastern CONUS may continue into April. This is definitely not a good sign down the road for helping the drought situation over the Florida peninsula.

It is possible that we may not get in our typical wet pattern until we get into late April or into May. May is generally when the rainy season kicks into gear. But, until then, we really are going to potentially have some big wildfire concerns for the next several weeks to come unfortunately.

[chaser1]

As I see it, dew points could easily be higher than they are. As dry as things are over most of Florida the one risk that could set off a brutal 1-2 month of fire season here, may well be a much greater pooling of moisture from opposing coastal sea breezes - in conjunction with cold air aloft. Rain is one thing that South and Central Florida REALLY needs but perhaps not at the cost of significant lightning strikes that could occur as a result of a few inland convective cells that could develop providing a more favorable set of atmospheric conditions and dynamics. If memory serves correctly, it has been lightning which has more often been the culprit responsible for setting off some of the largest prior year Florida tinder-box fires. Not that we have any control over any of this but one has to wonder which poison might be preferable for a state as dry and fire-prone as we are right now; milder yet dry or increasingly warm & fairly dry with the addition of some limited convective activity? A far better solution might be some deep slug of moisture from the south that overtakes most of Florida for a good couple days. Unfortunately, our dry northwesterly upper flow does little to contribute and we'll probably have to wait until mid May before we begin to anticipate some rich low/mid level tropical moisture to pump northward out of the Caribbean.

[northjaxpro]

Yeah, the dry, northwesterly continental flow pattern has been good and bad. It is beneficial in keeping our morning lows comfortably cool and days mild. However. the lower humidity values really have made this spring in Florida a dangerous fire zone for sure. Plus, the higher sun angle and longer days dry out the soil much faster as well.

The return flow from the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean has simply been shut down since January with the aforementioned pattern. This looks to continue unfortunately well into April. La Nina has really exerted its influence over the peninsula to this juncture for sure.

We did get a little rain late yesterday afternoon into the evening across the northern and central peninsula with a weakening frontal system. I measured about only one quarter of an inch. Most areas that got rain received between 1/4 to 1/2 inch on average. This is just only a drop in the bucket of what we badly need with rainfall.

[AdamFirst]

NWS Miami confirming EF-0 tornado this afternoon just east of Pahokee in the uninhabited sugar cane fields

 https://twitter.com/MichaelCBS12/status/980201680208883712

[gatorcane]

As is typical this time of year, we start to get some summer pattern type looks across the peninsula as seasons transition from dry to wet. Today looking at the radar we have seabreeze driven convection lining up inland of both coasts. It is basically "pseudo" rainy season type activity until the real rainy season begins around May 21st or so across Southern Florida and a bit later as you head further north up the peninsula. Still, it is starting to feel warmer each day as the sun angle is higher and fire season continues to be a concern of mine as the true start of rainy season is quite a ways out still.

[TheStormExpert]

Yep gatorcane, you can see the cumulus clouds building in the distance to the west and even offshore with the gulf stream showers to the east here in NE Palm Beach County. I was just thinking the other day about how the "Quasi" Rainy Season should be kicking off as we enter April and what do you know, it's done so already and it's only April 2nd. We'll take it as this could help lessen the chances of any significant wildfires or allow for less widespread wildfires statewide.

[Patrick99]

With colder pools aloft than you typically get in July-September, sometimes you can get severe weather out of this stuff in April and May. It's been a while since I've seen that happen, but looks like the pattern is there. I wouldn't mind seeing a borderline severe thunderstorm line set up over the metro areas....this ESE flow would have to relax a lot more for that to happen though.

[psyclone]

that seabreeze action was cool..but it was early and won't persist. For me, April is the best time of the year for pleasant, warm (but not hot) livable weather. It's a fairly dry month since we're in that zone where we're frequently below mid latitude fray but too soon for seabreeze convection.