Chance of Rain / Stronger Storms Sunday, Cool Temperatures New Year's Eve Day

"Rain chances increase for Sunday, then again next week after a cool down"

TODAY: A low level warm front at around 2000 ft (925mb), the remains of the previous cold front Christmas Eve day morning,   persists from somewhere between far North Brevard toward Central Volusia County and west across the state and well into the west to southwest Gulf. Over running this boundary is increased moisture and  cloudiness, with persistent cooler afternoon high temperatures, like yesterday, north of the boundary toward Central Volusia and north and especially across the  Panhandle of the state..

TONIGHT: Similar to last night and this morning in general.  An upper level energy/upper trough over western parts of Texas will begin to be progressing eastward in response to Jet Stream winds diving south  and will put a 'kink' in the above shown boundary (at 2000 feet above ground level) lifting it northward later on Saturday by mid-afternoon eventually as far north as South Central to Central Georgia. Wind at the ground level will become more east southeast and eventually SE-S overnight Saturday night into Sunday, and then SW by late morning to mid-afternoon Sunday. Warmer Saturday and Sunday despite cloudiness but not as warm as it could be as clouds might continue to be a nuisance.

A front will be forming as a result of this energy to approach the state, extending from low pressure to form near Mobile which will press ENE-NE toward Pensacola and into Georgia with the attendant frontal boundary to lie across Central Florida between 4pm - 9pm Sunday afternoon/evening from north to south. 

"......A front will be forming as a result of this energy to approach the state "

There is a small chance of strong to very isolated severe thunderstorms from near  Tallahassee to JAX and southward with time to a line running from Sarasota to Cocoa Beach later Sunday afternoon between 2pm -6pm time frame (Brevard County in general the latest after 3pm).  This could have been a potential true severe weather event but as has been the case numerous times since late fall the upper level winds that would support severe weather more assuredly will have exited east of the state prior to  the other dynamics that will be in place later on Sunday; however, conditions for even stronger wind gusts in the 40-50mph might be possible with even only a heavy rain shower for a very brief window of opportunity Sunday afternoon up until about 5pm - 6pm north of Vero Beach along the east coast more so from Cocoa Beach northward.

" .....conditions for even stronger wind gusts in the 40-50mph might be possible with even only a heavy rain shower"

BEYOND SUNDAY: This front will only be the first of two boundaries, and it is with the second one the much cooler air arrives, but to be short-lived relatively speaking. A few cooler mornings in store with lows running the 50Fs range and into possibly the mid-upper 40Fs interior and western Central to North Central Florida (much colder North Florida) , and also toward SW Florida. 

Again, the east coast immediate from the Cape and South east of US1 and especially east of A1A will escape the worst of this cool spell  as has been the case this winter season (which isn't all so unusual and is in general climatologically correct). Several times this season already the warmest spot in the country has been east of A1A from Cape Canaveral and south through the Keys.

NEXT UP: Perhaps it should be no surprise then that New Year's Eve day, like Christmas Eve day, might be again the coolest overall day round the clock that we've had in some time once the second boundary goes through Monday afternoon.As noted before in the previous post, there are signs of a possible severe weather event, this one on Sunday being one of them that as it ends up isn't quite panning out up to 'severe par', but there is yet another signal of another chance sometimes around January 8-10th time frame, this time stronger than this up and coming Sunday, as it appears a boundary and low pressure system will also be present once again, only further south than the set up for this weekend across North Florida.

BEYOND THE BEYOND: Granted, by talking the January 8th time frame we are already into extremely low confidence forecast range that is beyond reason, or nearly so, but for watchful eye's sake we are only talking trends and patterns..and in doing so, the guidance of the Global Forecast System (GFS) Model is sticking to it's pattern of beginning to form yet another low in the western Gulf after the potential event just described above. This is not unusual, for patterns to establish and repeat themselves in various ways. 

It can be noted that a low-mid-level pseudo boundary has seemed to set up thermally speaking across the Northern Gulf and North Central Florida for nearly 10 days now..and the longer this can persist the greater the thermal contrast aloft can set up to induce more rainmaking systems once upper level  energy passes overhead that invisible thermal threshold.