Barry or Not, Here Comes the Rain

Some weeks just aren’t exactly Chamber of Commerce weather… and this week is one of those weeks.

A few factors are coming together to bring us the potential for a significant amount of rainfall over the next seven days.

First, there’s the usual suspects of Florida’s wet season… deep nearly-tropical moisture, coupled with daytime heating, coming together to bring us our usual “diurnal storms.” In this case, rain chances are expected to be at upwards of 70% through midweek, dropping maybe just slightly toward the end of the week. As always, a rapidly-developing yet slow-moving thunderstorm over your head could drop more than an inch of rain in short order. Just ask the folks who tried to watch the race at Daytona on Saturday and Sunday before they finally just called the whole thing off.

The risk for heavy rain is especially high on the western half of the peninsula, where the Weather Prediction Center says there’s at a marginal risk of flash flooding on Wednesday and Thursday.

That risk, of course, is due to that little potential tropical matter we have to deal with. The National Hurricane Center now says there’s a 10% chance we’ll see a tropical depression in the Gulf by mid-week… and an 80% chance of it by the end of the week.

Regardless of whether it actually develops into Tropical Storm Barry, it’s expected to deliver the potential for heavy rainfall to at least the western part of the peninsula. Both the European and American forecast models are now in agreement that whatever forms will likely go westward, putting the would-be-Barry over the Texas coast around late Saturday / early Sunday. The Canadian model is still looking at the Georgia/Alabama border as a potential area of impact at that same time.

Note: This article contains forecast model graphics. Models do not necessarily mean an actual forecast of that result. They represent a potential result based on a specific set of available data at a single point in time, and cannot account for additional forecast variables that may occur many days into the future.

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Regardless of the path, if you have outdoor attractions on your mind this week, do them early in the week and early in the day to give you the best chance of avoiding afternoon weather delays.

(Oh, and as always… Don’t Panic.)