About a week ago, a cold front moved through central Florida and stalled over the Florida Straits and Gulf of Mexico. That cold front is long-since gone, but some mid and low level remnants of it are still present in the western Gulf. Why do I point this out tonight? Over the last 24 hours, weak low pressure has been trying to spin up over the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico; this spin up is likely to become more pronounced in the next day or two as an upper level disturbance moving over the southern Plains heads out toward the Gulf. This will provide enhanced lift and moisture for the attempted low. While I don't think anything truly tropical will emerge, that low will be swept in our general direction later this week.

OK, I think I may have put the cart a bit before the horse tonight. Let's rewind a bit. A strong cold front is moving through the northern part of the country right now. This is all part of a pattern change that will bring a true taste of fall to much of the eastern United States during the second half of September (maybe even here by next week -- stay tuned!). This go-around, though, the front will run head-long into the Bermuda high sitting just east of Florida and slow to a crawl. This means our chance of rain is going to increase pretty substantially starting tomorrow through mid-week.

We'll start Monday with a 50% coverage of storms, mainly in the afternoon. Storms will move from west to east, a bit of a change from recent days. By Tuesday, some of those storms could be on the stronger side as the "attempted low" moves toward the Florida panhandle along the cold front. The rain chance is 50%. The front will be more or less over the area Wednesday and just south of us on Thursday; this will leave a chance of morning and afternoon storms Wednesday (just showers Thursday) and lots of clouds around. The front will only barely be able to clear our southern counties. Because of this, there really won't be any appreciable change in airmasses. In fact, by the end of the week, the Bermuda high pushes far enough north again to send deeper moisture back in our direction and increases our rain chance once again.

I'm more hopeful that the pattern -- which is evolving into a colder one that features troughs in the east -- will allow a front by next week to completely clear central Florida and give us a taste of fall. I'll be monitoring that chance through the week. In the meantime, plan on some wetter weather this week with a return to more widespread showers and storms!

Brian Monahan