Brian: Gulf breeze kicking in, showers & storms later today

Good afternoon! Just finishing up the forecast for this evening and it looks like a similar day to yesterday is in store for us this afternoon. Expect showers and storms to develop later this afternoon along the Gulf breeze, which should have no problem working its way slowly inland later today. Once storms develop, mainly along and just east of I-75, they will move very slowly to the northwest with time, again giving us the opportunity for some very heavy downpours across parts of the area. Along the coast, once we get past mid-afternoon, it should be pretty quiet late this afternoon as most of the action shifts inland.

The heat will abate some later this week as our ridge of high pressure breaks down. Expect highs to still be in the mid 90's for tomorrow and Thursday, but move back into the more seasonable lower 90's by late week and into the weekend. The steering wind will remain light but shift slightly to more of a northwest flow Thursday and Friday as a weak trough sits across the southeast. This should again mean the best chance of rain will be mainly along and east of I-75 for Thursday and Friday.

By the weekend, the easterly flow returns, weak initially and then a little stronger later in the weekend/early next week. This should lead to more showers and storms along the coast in the afternoon and early evening.

The tropical wave in the central Atlantic remains well organized for a system so far out into the Atlantic for this time of year, but is struggling against southwesterly wind shear. Over the last few hours, there's been an attempted burst of convection on the western side of the system, but the trend over the past couple of days has been for the wind shear to make these bursts short-lived. As we told you last night, the system is simply running out of time to develop before it hits the very strong wind shear near the Windward Islands. The NHC is giving it just a medium chance of becoming a tropical cyclone in the next 48 hours.

Some of the tropical moisture associated with it could reach south Florida by Tuesday of next week; most of our models are suggesting this. As a result, I've increased the chance of rain in the Tuesday forecast. Scott & I will have more coming up this evening starting at 5. Hope you can join us!

Brian