JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – What a Friday night it turned out to be (and unexpectedly too!) Storms started off so innocently just west of town but as July storms do, they went crazy. Building up and down I-95 as the sea breeze front had been moving westward into our hottest day in the past eleven afternoons. Friday's high was 93°. The storms then proceeded to "ramble on" throughout the evening.
Biggest impact was from rainfall as a number of localized amounts nearing 4" happened west of Jacksonville near Baldwin and along the coast near Fernandina Beach. Gusty winds also accompanied these storms, Mayport recorded a wind gust to 47 mph.
Big heat days can easily turn into big lightning rain events, this is especially true during the last week or two of July into the first week or two of August. Which means, if we do see afternoon conditions get hot and steamy we again could see later evening storms, if not today then there is always Sunday.
Heading to the beach this weekend?
Remain alert to possible rip currents as there is a little bit of a ground swell (surf) and these may allow for a couple of rips to develop. Also remain alert to rapidly changing sky conditions, you may not get a lot of time to react to a rapidly developing and approaching storm.
Today's highs will range between 90° at the beach to the mid 90s in normally hot spots around town, including downtown to the west of Jacksonville. Mostly sunny skies will dominate at first then clouds and followed by a few thundershowers will follow.
From Sunday on... Here comes the deep tropical downpours. Next week we could see 2-4" of rain. This will keep afternoon highs below normal.
Temperatures which are "normally" in the low 90s (92° is our average) will instead run a few degrees shy of this each day through Thursday. We already have had 7 of 8 days in a row with daytime highs below normal, including last Thursday which had a high of only 86°.
Tropics are quiet with NO prospects of any storms anytime soon.
Quick Forecast:
6 a.m. - 75° Partly cloudy skies, 10% chance of showers
8 a.m. - 79° Partly sunny skies, 15% chance of showers
10 a.m. - 85° Partly sunny skies, 25% chance of showers
12 p.m. - 89° A few storms build, 30% with building chances of storms
Sunrise 6:41 a.m.
Sunset 8:24 p.m