Area Forecast Discussion
Issued by NWS Key West, FL
Issued by NWS Key West, FL
047 FXUS62 KKEY 150832 AFDKEY Area Forecast Discussion National Weather Service Key West FL 432 AM EDT Sat Jun 15 2024 ...New DISCUSSION, MARINE, AVIATION... .DISCUSSION... Issued at 430 AM EDT Sat Jun 15 2024 Currently - The exhausting stretch of wet weather has finally broken, but only just. The ribbon of deep tropical moisture remains draped across extreme southeastern Gulf of Mexico and Florida and is roughly coincident with lower level troughing. Mid and upper level troughing bottoms out just to our north while deep layered ridging dominates across Cuba and the northwestern Caribbean Sea. While convective activity has been isolated over the past few hours, the environment remains largely supportive of shower and thunderstorm activity. The combination of the nearby troughing to our northwest and ridging across Cuba is maintaining light to gentle broadly southeasterly breezes. Seasonable conditions are now in place with temperatures in the lower 80s and dew points in the mid 70s. Forecast - The weather features that were responsible for our very wet stretch will remain players in Keys weather over the next day or so. Surface troughing is expected to deepen in the Yucatan Peninsula and Bay of Campeche region. This along with the proximity of the persistent moisture plume and weak upper level troughing wiggling around the eastern Gulf of Mexico should be able to support clusters of showers and thunderstorms. The big uncertainty here will be their ability to build into our area and also perturb the local wind field in the face of increasing drier lower level air and ridging trying to swing northward out of Cuba. Will maintain high PoPs today, transitioning to slight by tonight. For the first half of the upcoming week, the previously mentioned are of low pressure near the Yucatan Peninsula is expected to continue to deepen as it migrates slowly westward. Conditions do appear to be conducive for tropical development. In addition, a robust high is expected to expand southeastward off of eastern United States. Regardless of tropical development, the combination of the above will ramp up the pressure gradient in the Keys through the first half of the week and consequently, increase east to southeasterly breezes. The environment is expected to be weakly capped but with modest lower level moisture. As a result, will maintain slight to low chance pops through this period. The high uncertainty continues through the latter portion of the forecast. All guidance points to an upper level low cutting off and diving southwestward through the northwestern Atlantic then across the southeast and Florida. However, there is quite a bit of variance from run to run and between the models regarding the exact details. In general, this low, along with an associated lower through mid level reflection is expected to swing through the Florida region very loosely in the Thursday time frame. The combination of the resultant increase in low level moisture and cyclonic flow, along with a window of upper level support may easily drive up PoPs across the broader region. Adding to this will be a still fairly tight pressure gradient due to the surface ridge across the southeastern United States. For now will hold low chance PoPs, which is a touch above seasonal norms. Stay tuned. && .MARINE... Issued at 430 AM EDT Sat Jun 15 2024 Very high uncertainty continues. This will largely be driven by the expected deepening of surface troughing over the Yucatan Peninsula and the Bay of Campeche, as well as, mesoscale perturbations following from associated convective activity. In general, broadly southeasterly breezes should remain gentle to moderate in the short term. However, the local pressure gradient is expected to tighten considerably as the low continues to deepen and continental high expands southeastward off of the mainland. Expect winds to trend upwards through the first half of the week, with the breezes tending stronger across our western reaches. && .AVIATION... (06Z TAFS) Issued at 430 AM EDT Sat Jun 15 2024 VFR conditions will prevail at both EYW and MTH through the TAF period. For the time being, shower activity has diminished but later in the TAF period we could see more periods of wet weather. Once timing confidence increase will include VCSH in the TAFs again with a possible cloudline later this afternoon. Near surface winds will become east southeast and be 5 to 10 knots. && .CLIMATE... On this day in 1930, the daily record low temperature of 69F was recorded in Key West. Temperature records for Key West date back to 1873. && .KEY WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES... FL...None. GM...None. && $$ Public/Marine/Fire...11 Aviation/Nowcasts....AP Visit us on the web at weather.gov/key Follow us on Facebook and Twitter at: www.facebook.com/nwskeywest www.twitter.com/nwskeywest