Area Forecast Discussion
Issued by NWS Key West, FL
Issued by NWS Key West, FL
085 FXUS62 KKEY 151829 AFDKEY Area Forecast Discussion National Weather Service Key West FL 129 PM EST Mon Dec 15 2025 ...New MARINE, AVIATION... .KEY MESSAGES... -A low chance of rain (20 to 30%) will persist into tonight as additional moisture pivots in across the area. -Small Craft Advisories remain in effect for fresh to strong northeast to east breezes. -As high pressure builds in over the second half of the week, mild, mostly dry conditions will be expected with gentle to moderate breezes. && .MARINE... Issued at 128 PM EST Mon Dec 15 2025 Fresh to strong northeast to east breezes prevail this afternoon in the wake of cold front this morning. Expect fresh to strong breezes to continue through the overnight and into Tuesday. Thereafter, a slight slackening of breezes will begin overnight Tuesday. Towards mid-week a ridge will settle across the Southeast U.S and Gulf Coast region and flatten. This will allow breezes to slacken further to light to gentle. There are indications that a weak front will hobble through Friday but may be enough to freshen breezes back to gentle to moderate. Meanwhile, enhanced moisture across the area will support a threat for scattered showers through the next several days, tending to favor across the Straits of Florida. && .AVIATION... (18Z TAFS) Issued at 128 PM EST Mon Dec 15 2025 Shower coverage is slowly expanding west southwest as additional moisture pivots in across the Florida Keys. Most of the activity has stayed offshore but is close enough to warrant a VCSH for MTH. Any shower that manages to pass over the MTH terminal could bring brief MVFR CIGs. Otherwise, confidence remains too low to include mentions of VCSH for EYW at this time. Lastly, gusty northeast to east winds will prevail through the majority of the forecast period. && .PREV DISCUSSION... Issued at 504 AM EST Mon Dec 15 2025 Weather conditions have been mostly quiet during this overnight shift, but our KBYX radar has been detecting pockets of showers to the east and southeast of the Upper Keys. The showers closest to the Keys have been filtering in from the area just offshore of Miami, but the newest development over the Florida Straits seems to be forming along some kind of boundary. Temperatures are in the lower 70s, but frequent wind gusts near 20 mph have made it feel a little chillier than the past couple of nights. GOES-19 IR imagery shows patchy low level clouds over some of our marine zones, but the island chain is still experiencing clear skies. This is good news for our warm weather lovers, because the morning sunshine may take some of the edge off of the chill. However, cloud cover may fill in as showers increase, so expect on and off sunshine throughout today. The most notable impact from this cold front on our sensible weather will be in our surface winds. Both NAEFS and ECMWF percentiles suggest that low level winds across our forecast area today will be close to a climatological maximum. This is a signal that simply tells us the winds in the current forecast are much higher than what an "average" forecast would hold for this time of year. While this doesn`t offer an insight to just how high these winds will be, it does provide confident that we are looking at breezy to windy conditions today. As the parent trough pivots and lifts over the coming days, breezes will start to slacken over the course of the second half of the week. Mean layer ridging will encourage a new push of moisture, but guidance is struggling to determine just how substantial this moisture will be. GFS and ECMWF ensemble members point to some chances for rainfall, but the NBM has single digit PoPs. We likely won`t see this wide range of solutions come to an agreement until we clear this cold front, so we`ll have to monitor how guidance trends over the next few days. && .PRELIMINARY POINT TEMPS/POPS... Key West 68 78 70 78 / 30 10 10 10 Marathon 69 77 70 79 / 30 10 10 10 && .KEY WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES... FL...None. GM...Small Craft Advisory for GMZ031>035-042>044-052>055-072>075. && $$ Public/Marine/Fire...LIW Aviation/Nowcasts....LIW Data Acquisition.....LIW Visit us on the web at weather.gov/key Follow us on Facebook and Twitter at: www.facebook.com/nwskeywest www.twitter.com/nwskeywest