South Florida is currently “in between” weather features so it may seem like the weather can’t make up its mind! This will be the case, just in the short run. To our north, high pressure is expanding over most of the eastern seaboard. It’s providing mostly clear conditions and drier air. On Wednesday afternoon, more blue sky was showing up over southeast Florida. Bright and beautiful weather returned after some early morning rain bands.
Meanwhile, deeper moisture is still lurking to our east, especially toward the Bahamas. This should lead to wetter conditions for south Florida on Thursday. The moisture will basically swing around the base of high pressure with our continued onshore flow. It’s still a breezy set up so showers will tend to move by swiftly. Having said that, forecast models show a “back log” of potential rain well to the east, so pockets could carry over through Thursday and possibly into Friday morning.
In the tropics we’re following Hurricane Leslie in the central Atlantic as well as a low pressure area (disturbance with possible development) in the southwestern Caribbean. Leslie recently had an uptick in strength. That’s what allowed it to become the season’s 6th hurricane in the Atlantic basin. Leslie will soon interact with a front which will weaken it and deflect the system northward. Once it reaches cooler waters, then, it will accelerate and assure that it will never become a land threat. As for the Caribbean disturbance, it still bears watching and there’s plenty of time to do so. Later this week, the low pressure center should head toward the northern Caribbean waters just as upper winds begin to subside, a bit. That may give it a chance to become a tropical depression into the new week. That’s unlikely to happen at least through Sunday because wind shear is too strong (cutting into thunderstorms that try to form).
The bottom line for south Florida? We need to patiently watch and wait. The system has low development chance over the next 5 days. Rain chances could increase especially into Monday and Tuesday of next week. Some long range forecast models show the disturbance combining with an upper low off the Florida coast. Should that happen, a large dose of rain could spread in, with the potential for heavy thunderstorms. Stay tuned.