Jim Weber's Blog

The drier, less humid weather from earlier in the week is gone. It was a nice break from the humid weather as we get ready for a long, hot summer. That drier weather did come at a price with the lower humidity, breezy winds, and still no rain, it just dries everything out even more. That was very evident with the wildfires on the east coast this week. The Florida Division of Forestry uses the Keetch Byram Drought Index to illustrate how each of the counties in the state are doing with the drought. Just a few weeks ago most of central Florida was in the 100s. Check out the index for today...Hillsborough is running in the high 400s.

The wind has turned more out of the WSW so that means more moisture is moving across the state. This is in the form of humidity which does help to slow the wildfires, but makes it feel muggy outside. Here is the dewpoint map from late this afternoon over Florida. Earlier in the week when it felt really comfortable the dewpoints were in the 30s and 40s. Once these numbers get into the 60s it starts to feel more humid when you step outside.

The rain is ever so close to us...in the panhandle they are seeing rain as close as Tallahassee, but this front is going to stall out and stay just to our north. The weekend does not look to bad with highs in the mid 80s and a small chance of some showers which would be a good thing to see since we need the rain. It will take much more than what we may see this weekend to make a dent in the drought. In the meantime will will watch the front tease us just to our north with better rain chances across north Florida.

On another note the Hurricane Center officially retired the names Dean, Felix, and Noel witch were storms from the 2007 season. Dean made landfall on August 21st near Costa Maya on the Yucatan Penisula.  Felix made landfall as a Cat 5 hurricane on September 4th at Punta Gorda, Nicaragua. Noel moved over the Dominican Repulic as a Tropical Storm and moved off the NE coast of the US producing hurricane force winds. You can see the entire article from NOAA by clicking Full Story.