ORLANDO, Fla. – The new buzz word around town is no longer thunderstorms, but rather severe weather in an entirely new form - fire danger.
Believe it or not, drought and fire weather conditions are still a type of severe weather.
Central Florida unfortunately is in for a long stretch of watching closely to keep the risk of wildfires breaking out as low as possible despite Mother Nature doing her best to amp up the threat.
As of this afternoon, Orlando and much of our viewing area will be right back in the 90s. Initially it looked like these temperatures would hold off until midweek.
But all thanks to a stationary ridge of high pressure, and upper level subtropical ridging, a plume of intense heat and dry air continues to surge northward from areas closer to the equator.
The dry air truly is the problem child here. We’re no stranger to 90 degree temps and maxed out humidity each and everyday we go about our business in the Sunshine State.
But because we’re in such close proximity to the center of our high pressure just off the northeast coast, we’re in the quadrant with most dry and stable air.
To make matters worse, the jet stream is now feeling the effects of the spring season full time.
If you recall in earlier articles, I’d mentioned our jet stream is a column of fast moving winds highest up in our atmosphere where weather is observed. This is easily 20,000 to 30,000 feet above where we are on the ground.
The jet is driven by temperatures, and a bit of a contribution by the Earth’s rotation.
But the primary culprit creating our jet stream that runs west to east across North America is the uneven heating of our planet’s surface by the sun.
So, when it’s hot everywhere, there isn’t a strong gradient to drive those winds. If you look at our upper level winds, you can hardly identify anything in the form of a jet stream, let alone any storm systems to help break down the ridge over us and get some much needed moisture or rain into Florida.
With time, this ridge is going to bully those systems approaching from the west away from us. It’s acting quite literally like a speedbump you’d drive over in a parking lot. You can’t go through it, so showers and rain have to go up and over it.
The average temperature for Central Florida’s summer is typically around 91-93 degrees. That’s precisely what we’re forecasting for the week ahead, and some change even. Mind you, we’re still not even done with April.
Salt to the wound, if you will, is when our forecast models are thinking rain could sneak back into our area. Initially, confidence was high we’d see some rain in the picture by Wednesday or Thursday. That’s since been delayed until next Monday. Looking at our most recent trends, this could quite possibly be delayed once more into the first day or two of May.
Models tend to struggle with large-scale weather features like this ridge prevailing over our weather. They want to move these things along faster than what actually occurs. With so much heat in place, it will take some time to flush the region of all these subtropical effects.
