This is one of those hair-pulling kind of forecasts temperature-wise in southwest Florida! Our forecast models are all over the place on temps today with the forecast complicated by a warm front forecast to move across the area later today. We'll spend most of the day on the cooler north side of the warm front... that means showers and periods of rain in your forecast for today -- first south of the Caloosahatchee with rain overspreading communities north of the river through the morning. We could see over a half inch of rain for most of the area between this morning and tomorrow afternoon.
Right now, we have what's known as a strong low level inversion in place. Usually the temperature decreases with height but this morning temperatures just about 2500 feet above the ground are in the 60's while it's in the 50's at the ground. This low level inversion will remain stuck in place as long as we're on the north side of the warm front. The models differ on when and how far north the front gets today; one of our models has the warm front moving all the way to near Tampa by 7 PM tonight while others have it staying south of Naples most of the day! To make matters worse, some models have temps stuck in the mid 60's today while others take even Fort Myers into the mid 70's this afternoon!
Because high pressure is pretty strong over Florida and the front is fairly weak right now, I'm leaning toward the cool side of things today. That should keep most areas north of Collier County in the 60's this afternoon while Naples gets into the lower 70's later today (perhaps mid 70's). The front should be located in south Lee County by 5 pm tonight and move across the rest of the area overnight. Tonight will likely be one of those strange nights where temps are steady or even rise after sunset!
Brian
