As expected, a cold front brought much stronger winds but not as strong as modeled (maximum of 19 kt so far) as well as a cooldown to 74F last night. Perhaps the modeled winds are too strong because the models smear the nearby ocean grid points (with lower friction and stronger surface winds) onto KEYW. There still could be slightly stronger winds later this evening.
It was a lot cloudier today than expected, even cloudier than yesterday, with a high of only 82F. The cooler, drier air mass will modify somewhat tonight, leading to a low a few degrees F warmer than last night. Increasing widespread clouds (not just scattered convective clouds, but also widespread low, mid, and high-level clouds associated with subtle warm and moist advection) and then possibly rain tomorrow will lead to a relatively small warmup, with a high at or slightly cooler than today’s high.
The amount of rain is very tricky again, with KEYW around on the northern edge of the rain and the rain being showery and convective in nature as is typical of the Florida Keys. NAM 3-km, GFS, and ICON show light rain or no rain, with most of the rain missing just to the south, while HRRR, ECMWF, CMC, and RGEM show substantial rainfall. 30 miles (50 km) will make all the difference! Given recent days and tendency for models (especially the coarser resolution ones) to overdo coverage of convective precipitation of scattered storms, I would lean on the low side for precipitation, but this is quite uncertain. The 18z model runs do push the rain slightly farther north into Key West compared to the 12z runs, though it is not clear how much this model shift really means. Winds will be slightly stronger than the past couple of days, especially if the thunderstorms do reach KEYW and cause brief wind spikes, though the lack of dry air in the low to mid-levels argues against strong cold pools and strong gust fronts. Given next week’s quietness, it is very possible that the 0.04” on day 1 could be the only precip for the entirety of KEYW, making for only 0.09” for the entire 1st month of WxChallenge!
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| Source: PivotalWeather |
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| Source: PivotalWeather |
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| Source: Meteogram Generator |
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