This week the dominant synoptic feature of Florida weather will continue to be an anomalously strong ridge of high pressure forecast to amplify northward from the Greater Antilles northward across the Bahamas and adjacent western Atlantic, including Florida.
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| The European Model forecasting hot conditions for Florida January 11-12 and remarkably, through January 21 the European is forecasting exceptionally warm weather for Florida. |
This strong high pressure will cause the flow aloft to back from quasi-zonal to SW, which will, in turn, cause weather systems to turn NE and lift out over the top of it, keeping cold air intrusions well away from Florida for the foreseeable future.
Through early next week, the strongest/most amplified in a series of northern stream short wave troughs (cold fronts) that will ride over the top of the ridge will be the lead system digging into Texas by Friday night, which will then turn sharply NE from the mid-lower Mississippi Valley through the Ohio Valley and central Great Lakes by Sunday morning. This will be followed by a weaker system that turns NE from the central plains to the western Great Lakes Sun-Sun night. All of this weather will be blocked from the Florida peninsula by the strong high pressure centered over the Greater Antilles.
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| January 21, 2020 forecast. While model forecasts are not all that reliable 2 weeks out, the consensus is that the blocking high will remain in place until around January 22nd when a polar vortex will plunge south abruptly ending the prolonged hot and dry January for Florida. It will be another week before we know if that current forecast will verify. |
The formidable ridging aloft with translate into a strong (1040MB+) high pressure ridge (1040MB+), which will produce several days of breezy to windy onshore flow, E-ESE becoming SE and then SSE through this weekend. The surface cool front associated with the parent trough aloft will probably not make it much (or any) farther south then the panhandle of Florida, keeping conditions increasingly warm, windy and dry.
Rain chances are insignificant (20-30 pct) with only low-topped coastal showers spreading N-W in shallow moistening of the local air mass forecast. Otherwise, a significant period of far above normal temps is in store, especially nighttime minimums along and near the east coast. Florida will also experience a burst of pollen as trees respond to the hot weather with eruptions of spring-like activity.
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| The European model forecasts virtually no rain over Florida through January 21, 2020. |
The magnitude of the onshore winds is likely to result in Lake Wind Advisories for most if not all of the Central Florida this week, and hazardous conditions at the beaches as well.
For the 3rd week of January (13-19 Jan 2020) anomalous ridging, both surface and aloft flattens some, but is still is forecast to remain strong enough to hold off any potential frontal intrusions into the Florida, until late January (if then). With winds a little more veered southerly, the small precipitation chances that exist this week will diminish making for a prolonged period of hot and dry weather across the Florida peninsula.
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Models have begun hinting at a Polar Vortex plunging south around January 22-25, 2020 bringing with it much colder air. This forecast will likely change significantly over the next 2 weeks.
