Thursday WX Outlook...

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

George Carlin

Today: A 40 % chance of showers and thunderstorms, mainly after 2pm. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 92. Calm wind becoming south-southwest between 4 and 7 mph.

Tonight: A 50 % chance of showers and thunderstorms. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 71. South wind between 4 and 7 mph becoming calm.

Scattered thunderstorms are forecast to move east around 10 to 15 mph from the I-75 corridor this morning to the I-95 corridor late in the afternoon. Some enhancement will be possible along the Atlantic sea breeze late in the day. Frequent cloud to ground lightning strikes and isolated strong wind gusts will be the main concerns.

Today's pollen level: 3.5-Low Medium (on a scale of 1to12): predominate pollen: Grass, Hickory and Oak.

Forecast Details: Both NAM and GFS indicate slight mid to upper level ridging with subtle height rises through the day and into this evening. Despite this, instability and moisture should be sufficient for scattered thunderstorms to develop along sea breeze boundaries, first with the Gulf Coast sea breeze later this morning and then spreading east through the day with enhancement likely late this afternoon Into this evening as Gulf Coast sea breeze/convective outflows interact with slow moving East Coast sea breeze somewhere in the I-95/US 301 vicinity. Temperatures should have no problem topping out in the low 90s again today in most areas. A few strong storms with 40 to 50 mph winds and heavy rainfall will be possible.

NAM and GFS also agree in their depiction of a potent short wave (with a sharp reflection at the surface) moving off the Gulf and across the CWA late tonight through Friday morning. Both show substantial increases in pw values off the gulf, approaching 2.25 inches. A relatively strong llj (30 to 40 kts) is also depicted by both the models. So it appears as though dynamics/moisture and instability will be supportive of strong to severe thunderstorms with the potential for intense downpours. Storms will be moving along which will help mitigate any flooding but some areas could locally pick up several inches. Confidence is fairly high in this scenario given the agreement among the NAM and GFS but it should be noted that the Canadian GEM and ECMWF are not on board with this solution. Given that the NAM/GFS seem to be handling the current situation upstream a little better, will lean heavily in their direction. Have correspondingly bumped rain chance up to 70 %.