Periods of rain expected Thursday into Thursday night as a frontal system crosses the region. Modeling suggests a pretty decent rainfall between one-half and one-inch through the period. This will help a little bit with the abnormally dry ground conditions. The modeling doesn’t show a whole lot of instability with this system, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there are a few rumbles of thunder Thursday afternoon. It’s going to be rather chilly, though, thanks to the clouds and rain (and passing cold front)… our highs are going to struggle to reach the lower 60s, and that may be a bit optimistic. So you’ll definitely want an umbrella and a jacket through the day on Thursday.
After that, high pressure builds in for the weekend with dry weather and temps just slightly above seasonal averages. I’m not as optimistic on a dramatic warm-up as I was during last evening’s update, so I went a little bit lower on afternoon max temps over the weekend.
Eventually the high slips off the coast and genuinely warmer weather looks to be on tap through the middle of next week.
TROPICS: The future “Sara” is coming together in the Caribbean Sea. This is expected to reach tropical storm strength and sort of meander along the Honduras, Guatemala, and Belize coasts through the weekend, eventually lifting northward by Monday. That’s as far out as the NHC forecast goes. Spaghetti plots show this crossing the Yucatan and pushing into the Gulf, where there is still an abundance of warm water. The storm is then modeled all over the place, but we’re starting to see a cluster of runs coming together lifting Sara north, then northeast toward Florida as we go through next week. It’s way too early to make a definitive call on this, but if you have friends and family in Florida, they need to be paying attention to these trends.
One good thing about the longer-range modeling, they’re not as bullish on the strength… keeping the soon-to-be-Sara as either a strong tropical storm or perhaps a category-1 hurricane through 132 hours. A big question is whether or not she will survive the trip over the Yucatan. Until we cross that bridge, everything else after that is pure speculation.
That’ll do it for tonight’s update. As always, I thank you for reading, and take care.
