ORLANDO, Fla. – With the approach of a strong push of polar air from the north, conditions will have to go downhill before they can go uphill (or vice-versa once you factor in such a tremendous drop in our surface temperatures).
Regardless of how you cut it, thunderstorms are back in the Central Florida forecast, and some of them could get strong.
It’s the classic cold versus warm battle that will unfold over the Southeast, with an extension of the threat digging into the Florida peninsula. We’re surrounded by warm water on all sides, with an increasing amount of tropical/subtropical moisture present for storms to try to take advantage of.
What we’re lacking is that catalyst, the trigger. That comes in the form of our cold front down in the low levels of the environment, and its supporting mechanism high up being the jet stream troughing south to begin with.
The jet stream is what drives our fronts, and fronts in and of themselves are simply what we use as meteorologists to signify where the transitional point occurs from one air mass to another. The blue line coming down with the solid triangles along the leading edge of it highlights where we switch from our traditional Florida summer-style atmosphere into a totally different realm behind it.
As the air comes down to push the warmth out of the way, it helps to lift that warmth at the same time. Add a little moisture to the recipe and that’s where you can get quickly rising motions that produce thunderstorms. These same thunderstorms have a potential of getting strong.
Sunday into Monday looks primed for at least an isolated chance a few of the storms we watch form along the leading edge of that cold air mass get stronger than your average rain maker.
High temperatures on Saturday and Sunday are going to bounce back into the mid- to upper 80s, which is an enormous swing compared to where we’ve been the last two weeks.
We can all thank Melissa for this change, believe it or not. Melissa, combined with us really making the transition away from any leftover summertime weather toward the full onset of fall, is what creates “thermodynamic chaos,” in my opinion.
Temperature differences drive the weather across our planet. These localized events of strong to severe storms are just small-scale examples of that. The wind we feel, the clouds we see, the rain that falls, even the hurricanes that may hit, are all driven by temperature.
Oftentimes we’re lacking the trigger to set off that chain reaction between cold and warm. Like in chemistry class, you can mix a few powders or colored liquids, but without a flame or some kind of acidic substance to really get the reaction going it does nothing but sit and simmer.
In our case, the trough in the upper atmosphere will help draw in warmth from the south. We’ll be borrowing moisture and air from the lower Gulf, the Caribbean and the waters that encompass much of those same regions.
Then when the jet stream digs south, and the front can start rolling through, that’s when the scraping effect of that dense and heavy cooler air helps pull that trigger and set off the activity.
For now, a majority of the action should stay toward the north and eastern sides of Florida, with an extension reaching up into Georgia and the Carolinas. By mid-day, some of the more sporty storms will start to ignite to our west and push east, riding the nose of that front.
Expect heavy downpours in your more organized storms, gusty winds, and some frequent cloud-to-ground lightning. We can’t rule out the potential for hail, since we are rolling into a cooler airmass, and the low-end potential of a funnel cloud trying to wrap up.