Good morning! The long awaited warm up begins today across southwest Florida as temperatures this afternoon rebound off of lows in the upper 30's inland and 40's elsewhere to climb into the mid 60's this afternoon. We will add some more high clouds into the mix later on today, especially south of the Caloosahatchee River, as the subtropical - southern - branch of the jet stream begins to lift toward the north and bring with it some clouds out of the western Gulf and Mexico. We'll see more in the way of high clouds tomorrow as an upper level disturbance moves into the Gulf.. temps will be in the mid to upper 60's for Friday.
Even more clouds will be around for the weekend as that upper disturbance tracks nearly overhead. At this point though, it looks like the low levels of the atmosphere will be too dry to allow any rain -- most of our models are squashing the precip with this next system out over the eastern Gulf. That said, I'll leave open the door for maybe a sprinkle or two on Saturday and Sunday. Even with some more clouds, much warmer this weekend with highs near 70 on Saturday and in the mid 70's on Sunday!
The forecast for next week is a little tricky right now. Remember earlier this week when I mentioned we're in a transitional pattern, one that the models often struggle with? Still the case this morning... with some models bringing in much colder air at mid week next week, others not cooling us down much behind a front on Monday night/early Tuesday. At this point, we'll split the difference in the forecast and cool things down into the upper 60's to near 70 for mid week next week after some rain Monday. It is getting to the point though, now, where it's harder and harder to have exceptionally cold weather (at least afternoons) in SWFL as the sun angle gets higher and higher as we approach the start of spring!
Have a great day.. Brian
