ORLANDO, Fla. – Your Wednesday is looking pretty great if you’ve been waiting for relief after days of torrential rains and intermittent showers blasting across our peninsula.
A pocket of mid-level dry air has finally worked its way into the local area, helping cut off the once persistent moisture feed providing us with rains quite literally ripping east to west from our east coast through town.
But, like everything in the weather, there’s always a catch.
Thursday and especially Friday could get a little sporty for Central Florida, as the polar jet stream begins to dig southward into the lower U.S., giving the atmosphere some stimulus to trigger development of a coastal low pressure.
One thing right away - this will be fully non-tropical. Tropical features do not like the jet stream, nor do they fare well when differences in temperature or dry air are mixed into the equation.
As the jet troughs south into portions of Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and northern Florida, the leading edge or the nose of the trough will create some lift producing that trademark low pressure spin off the southeast tip of our state.
This will yank some additional cooler, drier air down for the weekend but because of the different layers in play, it’ll also help stir up some very rainy and stormy conditions before that continental air arrives.
Starting Thursday and especially early Friday morning, winds are expected to pick up out of the east and northeast. This onshore flow will likely drive more water into the mouth of the St. Johns River, which is already at a moderate flood stage.
Conditions will really go downhill as we get into mid-Friday. Some spots up the east coast of Volusia, Flagler counties, to our neighbors outside our viewing area could see winds hitting the beaches anywhere between 30-40 mph.
While watching the development of low pressure offshore, it will begin to hurl extra moisture our way as the counter-clockwise turning in the winds begins. Central Florida could see winds gusting beyond 20-30 mph, and the rains will pick back up starting Thursday.
Timing for the resurgence of rains here in Central Florida begin both up north and down south Thursday, with storms forecast to begin forming as we approach the warmest parts of the day closer to Flagler and Volusia counties then to our south within southern Brevard, Osceola and Polk counties.
We’ll begin to see disturbed weather around 12 p.m. through 2 p.m. From there, it’s all hands on deck as more showers and storms erupt from both simple daytime warmth and the upper level trigger being the jet stream.
Friday morning some of our east coast counties could already have some rain as you start the day. The onshore winds coming in out of the east do seem to want to keep steady showers and light rain overhead as the sun comes up, so prepare for wet roads and an increase in traffic as you get underway.
Volusia, Brevard, sections of Seminole, Orange, and Osceola counties once again will be rocking essentially throughout the day Friday into the early evening hours. Some strong storms are possible.
The jet stream way above us, a surface low pressure beginning to spin, lots of moisture, and some sunshine go a long way in providing us with rains and thunderstorms.
This past weekend, portions of Brevard and Osceola managed to collect nearly 10 inches of rain. Models seem to be pinpointing the potential we’ll gather another 2-4 inches before this event wraps up.
With the grounds being so saturated as is, this won’t be good if we’re trying to avoid any returning flood conditions.
On the plus side, we’re still tracking a GLORIOUS weekend in store after all this is said and done. On top of that, the following week ahead looks clear, cool and dry. A complete night-and-day difference compared to how things started this week.