Today looks like a great way to start the weekend! We are talking isolated showers at best so get out there and enjoy the parks! Thanks to onshore flow drier air will continue to work it’s way into the area – translation – less moisture for building thunderstorms to work with. All that sunshine means it will be hot hot hot to start the weekend with temperatures easily in the mid 90s for highs and heat indexes in the triple digits. Each day that goes by, the chance for afternoon showers will increase until we get to the start of next week and we are back to “normal”. Now don’t totally let your guard down – we are essentially surrounded by water on three sides so the ingredients are always there for an afternoon thunderstorm in the summer months. Best thing to do is to always keep us in mind on Twitter if you are roaming the parks and we’ll try to let you know if there’s a problem coming.
So what’s going on with Tropical Storm Don – well this ones easy – he’ll stay a tropical storm it looks like by the time landfall occurs sometime tonight (Friday). Looking at the latest satellite image Don still has a sheared appearance and I can’t say he’s seen better days – because he hasn’t. Due to the very warm waters some strengthening should still be able to occur but I’m not thinking it will reach hurricane status. Plenty of rain will be seen from the system.
Elsewhere in the tropics we may have something to talk about next week when you read this on Monday as the National Hurricane Center just upgraded a wave we’re watching. Not much to talk about yet but environmental conditions appear favorable for further development so stay tuned as one model has this disturbance becoming a hurricane by next week and some of the tracks take it close enough to Florida where it bears watching.