Rain is on the way later today as another cold front moves into the eastern Gulf of Mexico. We'll start the day partly cloudy but clouds will increase this afternoon and the rain arrives from north to south. Even with the clouds and chance of rain this afternoon, it will be much warmer today -- and breezier -- as temps push toward the mid 70's.
The front comes through late tonight and, in the end, we'll see around a quarter inch of rain through most of the area. By the time you wake up tomorrow morning, the sky will be clearing and cooler air will be moving in. In fact, with cold air filtering in througout the day tomorrow, temps will likely struggle to make it out of the upper 50's!
We'll get a bit warmer on Thursday with some clouds moving in ahead of our next system, highs in the mid to low 60's. By Friday, today's cold front will be moving just a bit farther north as a warm front -- it'll stay to our south though. That should give us a cool, raw, rainy day on Friday as low pressure moves along the old front over south Florida. The forecast models now have highs in the low to mid 60's for Friday; I'm going with a high of 61 and leaning cooler because of the stalled front to our south (rather than over us or to our north). It'll be interesting to see what the models do with temps on Friday over the next few days.. my guess is as a more southern track to our next low comes into focus, they'll start going lower.. I'm trying to stay ahead of that trend!
The next several days will continue to run cooler than average across the area. In fact, there are signs a new arctic front will move through on Monday! By the way, if you're interested in the big Ohio Valley/Great Lakes/Northeast snowstorm.. I put together a forecast snowfall accumulation map (never thought I'd do this in SWFL but it's been such an extraordinary winter for folks there and a lot of you are interested in the weather up north... so enjoy) above!
Brian
