ORLANDO, Fla. – There’s no shortage of winter storms across the big picture weather pattern on Wednesday! With every singular system, comes change. We’re tracking multiple low pressure centers ejecting from the Rocky Mountains out west and through the Great Plains, building momentum as they do so.
Once they reach the eastern U.S., that’s when we begin to feel their impacts here in Central Florida. On Wednesday, Thursday with our possibly record-setting high temperatures and through your Valentine’s Day/Race weekend, we’ll be going through a lot of “shifts” in our local weather.
If you haven’t already noticed, reread “record-setting” above. Thursday afternoon, in response to the next approaching frontal system, our temperatures we’ll rise quickly once the sun comes up and aim to breach the 90-degree mark. This would be the EARLIEST arrival of 90-degree weather in Florida ever.
From there, we’re going to see rain chances start to come up and then temperatures will sink slightly for Valentine’s Day on Friday. The weekend could get even more interesting, especially with Speed week winding down to the Great American Race on Sunday afternoon.
There’s a few different scenarios I’m closely monitoring alongside my Pinpoint Weather teammates. I’ll walk you through them, so stick with me!
We’ll rip the band aid off and get the worst-case scenario out into open air.
With our stronger cold front approaching overnight Saturday into Sunday morning, we could see potentially powerful storms try to ignite during the warmest part of the day. This would also run face first into the green flag trying to fly at the Daytona 500. At most, we’d see a rain delay into the early evening till the jet dryers can take care of the track.
Storm Prediction Center is also monitoring for the possibility the front comes through at optimal timing (between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m.) to tap into our greatest levels of unstable air and kick off some robust showers and strong storms.
Scenario No. 2, as the American model is currently depicting: The front slows down some as the low pressure driving the cold air south moves further away. As a result, the flow helping to drive that front down across Florida weakens.
Without enough push behind it, that front won’t pick up enough forward momentum to create those thunderstorms I mentioned in your first scenario. Then, we’re looking warm for the Daytona race, with clouding skies before the more annoying or pesky rain starts to fall.
Scenario No. 3, which we’ve seen happen countless times before: The front loses its gusto as it starts to plunge southward into our viewing area. As such, the showers along its leading edge fade before washing out altogether. This would indeed be best-case scenario for a lot of us. However, I caution going into your race weekend or any Valentine’s Day plans you may have without preparing at least marginally for the chance of rain. Always err on the side of caution. We all know how wacky and bizarre Florida weather can get (clearly).
Once we start rocking through Thursday and especially Friday, we’ll have a lot more data to chomp at together and dial in your forecast for the upcoming weekend. We’ll also get the chance to dig in to what Storm Prediction Center is thinking for our thunderstorm chances on Sunday.
I do foresee some of the more rigorous stuff bleeding into Florida, solely based on the threat for our friends northwest of us in the Deep South. A 30% risk for severe storms five days away suggests we could be looking at an outbreak unfolding.
More to come, stick with your Pinpoint Weather team as we wander into the middle portions of February together. The backside of this month does look to be pretty busy for all of us.
