Friday WX Outlook...

"Weather forecast for tonight: dark. Continued dark overnight, with widely scattered light by morning."

George Carlin

Today: Showers and thunderstorms likely. Some of the storms could produce heavy rain. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 89. Southwest wind between 5 and 10 mph. Chance of precipitation is 70%.

Tonight: A 20 % chance of showers and thunderstorms before 2am. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 72. Southwest wind between 3 and 6 mph.

Numerous thunderstorms are forecast today. Isolated storms may become strong to severe late in the afternoon. The main concerns will be strong winds and localized flooding. Storms will generally move in an easterly direction at 10 to 15 mph.

Today's pollen level: 0.6-Low (on a scale of 1to12): predominate pollen: Grass and Oak.

Forecast Details:

Now...

Showers and thunderstorms in the Gulf Of Mexico are moving inland and will cross the Suwannee River by 930 am. Brief heavy rainfall should be expected with the thunderstorms as they move east-northeast at 15 to 20 mph.

Numerous thunderstorms expected today and Sunday with lesser coverage on Saturday. Precipitation and cloud cover should keep most areas just below 90 today. Temperatures will then rebound some on Saturday, with highs topping out in the low 90s most areas. Dew-points in the low to mid 70s will make it feel close to 100 degrees on Saturday.

General consensus depicts the closed upper low upstream over Southeast Texas gradually weakening and opening up into a strong positively tilted trough as it moves ever so slowly east along the Gulf Coast the next 48 hours. Several upper level disturbances will propagate east in our direction.

NAM and GFS have backed off considerably on strength of short-wave Today. They have not however backed off on strong surge of moisture in increasing flow off the Gulf. This surge of higher PW values in excess of 2 inches began overnight and has resulted in a few showers across our southern counties so far this morning. This activity will continue to spread northeast with showers and thunderstorms becoming more numerous during the day. Most of the models now keep the strongest PVA north of the area. The GFS now actually depicts neutral or weak 500-mb positive vorticity advection across northeast Florida. A weak vort lobe is expected to clip southeast Georgia late in the day. The NAM on the other hand suggests several upper level disturbances will cut through the upper ridge during the day.

In any event, both models have backed off on strength of low level jet and shear values are now not nearly as impressive. In addition, 500-mb temperatures are expected around -5 to -6c with freezing levels close to 16,000 feet. Warmer temperatures aloft in combination with relatively weak shear should preclude organized severe weather, especially in the absence of a strong short-wave. Main threat today will be potential for minor flooding in very heavy rainfall. Will keep pops at 70 % across the board and continue to mention potential for locally heavy rainfall. Still cannot rule out strong wind gusts in isolated wet downbursts.