July goes down in the books as a wet month, all across south Florida. As for specific locations, Miami (with over 8 inches of rain) wasn’t too far above average for the month. However, both Ft. Lauderdale and Key West were around 4-inches above usual in the rain department! For the time being, a drier trend has returned. While not completely void of showers, they’re only arriving in small and isolated quantities. The limited activity is a far cry from recent bouts with heavy and slow-moving downpours! The change is due to a decrease in moisture. For now, the levels are much lower than typical, but it’s not likely to last very long. The only trigger for potential rain and storms is the inland moving sea breeze. Spotty and widely separated rain bands will dampen a few areas around the Upper Keys to the southeast coast into Sunday morning. Then, the merging sea breeze boundaries will tend to meet across the Everglades with the best chance for afternoon storms in that area. Meanwhile, the rest of us will find that the strong summer sun will dominate, even deep into the day.
You may have noticed the extra high heat in recent days. Miami is running a 5-day streak with above average temperatures and they’ve consistently peaked at either 92 or 93-degrees. While that might not seem too excessive, especially this time of the year, it’s the combination of heat and humidity that has many of us “melting”. During the afternoon hours, we continue to see the heat index reading (known as the “feels like temperature”) ranging between 100 and 107-degrees! When we face conditions as such, it’s necessary to stay hydrated, and avoid over-doing it with exercise and outdoor work! Basically, there’s an increased concern for heat exhaustion and it may be necessary to simply spend some time indoors and in the air conditioning. When will the extra-hot pattern break? Temperatures will gradually settle back a couple degrees (not too much) but the main difference will come with added clouds and some cooling rain bands. That transition will take place early in the work week, from Monday into Tuesday. Essentially, we’re looking at a more unsettled midweek with the clouds bubbling up during the day and eventually bringing more widespread areas of rain. We’ll need to be on the lookout for rounds of heavy rain with very slow movement again, too. The reason? Light winds will persist all week long.
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