Day 4 of Tallahassee, FL (KTLH)

Ideal radiational cooling conditions again led to a low of 40F last night, with a rapid warmup to 81F this afternoon with full sunshine until some high clouds stopped the warmup in the afternoon. The sea breeze brought a maximum of 11-12 kt winds this evening. The day 4 forecast will be very different from the past few days. A weak low pressure currently in Texas will slowly strengthen and move eastward, with thickening clouds at KTLH tonight ahead of the low pressure. Winds turn to easterly, initially weak, but enough to start advecting Gulf of Mexico or Atlantic moisture into the region. As such, it will not cool down nearly as much as the last few nights. An initial batch of rain will occur late tonight. The low will likely occur around this time, as evaporational cooling in the dry air takes place. However, models already disagree on how much rain will fall with the initial batch. A mid-level dry slot will then move in, which will allow for a bit of clearing and some daytime heating, but exactly how much is rather uncertain with low clouds possibly remaining stubborn and being notoriously difficult to predict. If the low clouds break a little more, it will warm up several degrees F more. Winds will turn to light southeasterly and then southerly as the low pressure slowly moves through the Deep South and ends up due north of KTLH by the end of day 4. High resolution models indicate that most of the organized convection will occur north of KTLH, though the NAM 3-km shows more than the HRRR. Isolated thunderstorms could still drop briefly heavy rainfall and lead to brief stronger winds, which are nearly impossible to predict over a given location. The organized convection could also lead to mesoscale areas of stronger wind, though again, most models show those passing to the north. As is typical of Florida, the convective nature of rainfall leads to a very large uncertainty in the precipitation amount.

Source: PivotalWeather

 

Source: PivotalWeather