We’ve got a very interesting environment setting up across our Sunshine State over the next 24 hours and into the latter portions of the week ahead.
Severe weather is back AGAIN. Only this time, instead of our sea breeze won’t specifically be the driving factor.
If you recall Saturday morning, there was rain everywhere for many of us! We had an unseasonable cold front make its way southward across our area this past weekend.
But now that same front is stuck, it’s hung up over the bottom portions of the peninsula. As a result, we’re seeing a consistent push of moisture into the neighborhood. When a front stalls out, winds on either side run parallel to one another. This can also instigate a bit of colliding in the wind flow, resulting in lift.
You combine that with hot water temperatures off both our coastlines, and you’ve got the perfect setup for some afternoon thunderstorms. Some of these will try to go severe, especially if it gets hot enough outside.
On top of that interesting detail, some of our forecast models over the next two or three days show the potential for some energy to try and spin off our east coast before pulling north. It is hurricane season now, after all! While this may not be a classifiable entity per the National Hurricane Center, it will be interesting to watch in real time.
If that small area of low pressure does start to form over open water, we will likely see even more moisture driven into Central Florida. This is why rain chances only go up from here at least until the first upcoming weekend of June.
Now, despite the quality mechanism in play for some daytime showers and storms, our air quality is going to take a hit.
In fact, a 1-2 punch at that.
To our north, we have smoke created by a large-scale Canadian wildfire making its way down into the area. That alone is enough to cause a bit of mayhem for those who may struggle with seasonal allergies or respiratory illnesses. The smoke could exacerbate things.
Combine the wildfire smoke with our first genuine plume of Saharan dust, and you may be in for a bad breathing day.
The first wave of dust from Africa is expected to arrive in Central Florida by Tuesday evening and continue into Wednesday. It’ll be directly overhead by Thursday and Friday, finally starting to flow northward away from us this weekend.
Then, according to a few different computer models, the dust should relax some for another week or so. The heat-induced low over northwest Africa that’s responsible for churning that dust alongside the jet stream flowing westward off the African continent is forecast to back off. This could give us a break from the consistent pushes of dust affecting our air here at home.
