Hot and dry were the weather words over the weekend and at the start of this week; no more, though, as gathering deep moisture in the Gulf has moved into central Florida and will set up shop over the next few days. Today's heavy rain -- more than two inches have fallen so far in The Villages -- was a bit of a surprise. Our forecast yesterday called for a 20% chance of showers and storms but, instead, the afternoon was marked by a slug of blinding, heavy rain moving east-northeastward along I-4. What gives? Way up in the atmosphere, around 20,000 feet, a jet streak moved by central Florida late this morning into this afternoon. Think of a jet streak as the corvette going 130 mph down I-4 while the rest of the cars are going 80 mph; it's essentially an even faster ribbon of air embedded within the already quick-moving jet stream. On the southwest side of this jet streak, which central Florida was under, the air rises quickly -- with enough heating this morning and the return of deep moisture, this upward moving air was enough to fuel storms that produced rainfall totals like these:

• The Villages: 2.23"
• Winter Springs: 1.19"
• Apopka: 1.16"
• Colonialtown: 1.09"

The jet streak is moving away tonight, but southwest flow off of the Gulf of Mexico will keep rain chances in the forecast tonight. Scattered showers and storms will continue to move from west to east overnight with locally heavy downpours, especially across our western and central counties through late this evening. Our setup is very similar tomorrow, with a flow off of the Gulf continuing to pump moisture over the area. Our rain chance is 60% Monday and then jumps to 70% Thursday as a slow-moving front sags and stalls over the area. This front will be like squeezing a sponge over central Florida given the high amount of moisture in the atmosphere; expect storms with heavy rain -- both early and late in the day. Some of our models are printing out (on average) well over two inches of rain across most of the area between this afternoon's rain and Friday night, when a drier pattern begins to move in.

Have a great night!

Brian Monahan