ORLANDO, Fla. – Through the day Sunday and into the early half of next week, temperatures are expected to climb back into the 80s.
This is a direct response to an approaching stronger frontal system that’s currently working its way into the Pacific Northwest that we will begin to feel here in Florida as we get into late Monday, early Tuesday.
As the front swings down into the Deep South and Southeast, a phenomena called “return flow” is likely to draw in more moisture and warm air from our south into the peninsula and up into the Gulf coast states. What this should ideally do, is prime the atmosphere for producing rainfall.
The question at hand for the day on Wednesday is the timing of this front as it approaches central Florida. Models were suggesting it would likely be a daytime event, but the latest data now points towards a possible early morning arrival.
There’s a few different reasons this matters, and I’ll break them down for you!
Storms naturally thrive on warmer air. The more warm it is down where we are at ground level, the better the air is for storms to form and start producing rain. Of course, we all know the warmest parts of the day are between noon and maybe 2 or 3 p.m.
Warm air acts as a lifting mechanism. Combine that with a cold front, bringing in a shallow layer of cooler, denser air that undercuts the warm air in pace and you can increase your lift twice as much.
Here’s the kicker – timing.
Daytime warming as its called naturally occurs while the sun is up. The moment the sun goes down, that warm air that was brought on during the daytime irradiates out for the majority and we’re left with cooler overnight temps. With the cooling that goes on, our Earth stabilizes. One of the main reasons we typically don’t see thunderstorms forming overnight unless there’s a forcing mechanism involved.
If the front decides it wants to speed up or slow down, and come through us when it’s dark out, there won’t be any energy for the moisture to tap into and create rain showers or storms. This has been what’s occurred the last few cold fronts we’ve had come through. Either weak, and fast moving showers have fallen resulting in little to no help in our dry conditions. Or the rainfall has completely dissipated before it makes it to us.
We’ll be pinpointing exactly when that front is most likely to arrive, if our rain chances will either grow or diminish, and especially how cold it will get immediately following its passage.
