Showers and thunderstorms returned to the forecast after a period of unseasonably dry conditions.
We saw a lot of lightning and rain along the I-4 corridor. Polk County was under a Severe Thunderstorm Warning for about half an hour.
The day began with some sunshine, but storms fired up with the peak daytime heating and along sea breeze boundary collisions.
Highs will bounce back into the mid-90s, with temperatures closer to 90 degrees along the coast.
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Friday marked a major pattern shift for East Central Florida’s weather, as we saw the end of the unseasonably dry conditions that were in place all week. Showers and thunderstorms returned in a big way as east-southeasterly wind flow pulled in added moisture. Evening storms lingered through the midnight hour, and several produced damaging gusty winds, frequent lightning and some localized flooding. After an active evening, skies will slowly clear this morning with lows dropping into the middle to upper 70s with some light areas of fog possible by daybreak.
The overall weather pattern over the Florida peninsula for this weekend and much of the next week will feature hot and humid conditions, with the daily occurrence of late day showers and thunderstorms. Highs will consistently reach the middle 90s with humidity making it feel more like the temperatures are in the triple digits. With high pressure to our north a more typical wet-season pattern will emerge with the small chance for showers along the coast early in the day and the higher chance for thunderstorms over the interior counties through the afternoon.
As of early Friday, Cristobal is no longer a hurricane. This storm has now transitioned into a post-tropical storm as it races to the northeast away from the United States. While Cristobal is no longer a problem, there are some tropical waves that have a chance for tropical development over the next few days. One is a broad area of low pressure in the west central Caribbean that has been classified as Invest 99. This disturbance has a low to medium chance for development in the next 24 to 48 hours as it travels west. There is another wave of interest just departing the west African coast that also has a low chance of development through the next five days as it emerges south of the Cape Verde Islands. The increased activity falls in line with the approach of the statistical peak of Atlantic Hurricane Season, which statistically is on or around Sept. 10.
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