#35 Published Tuesday June 14 2005 at 12:00 pm EDT

Well the 13 day rainfall deluge finally came to a temporary end for the Florida peninsula yesterday as the Bermuda high pressure ridge from surface to 250 mb finally built in across the eastern U.S. including Florida, ushering in drier subsiding (sinking) air. In the past 48 hours the precipitable water level of the atmosphere across the peninsula has dropped from a saturated tropical like approximate 2.40" to 1.25".

Here in suburban SW Plant City 25 miles east of Tampa my NWS CWOP station saw measurable rainfall for 13 consecutive days totaling 12.23". The Plant City NWS climate station a few miles to my north measured 9.85", which is 318% above normal. Venice saw the highest rainfall total in the Tampa Bay area with 14.55". Punta Gorda saw the highest rainfall total on the peninsula at 18.70", with Fort Myers second at 16.52".

All of the peninsula will enjoy a continued temporary respite from the very wet weather into Thursday June 16, 2005. Thereafter mid level longwave troughing will return to the eastern U.S. including Florida. This means a return of the tropical moisture plume from the western Caribbean on SW flow, much like we saw during the first week of June 2005.

To complicate matters we had a penetration into the central Caribbean of a non tropical weather feature in the past week. Within it's southern extension south of Haiti and Jamaica a fledgling tropical disturbance is now brewing. Tropical cyclone development in the central and eastern Caribbean in June would be unusual. But never the less we "may eventually" see tropical depression #2 and then tropical cyclone Brett form from this disturbance as wind shear in the region lessens. The disturbance is currently stationary but my "best guess" of it's future movement would be NW across Cuba and then towards south Florida.

Bottom line is that Florida will once be under the gun beginning this weekend for tropical deluges and flooding. Stay tuned.

Take Care,
Thomas F. Giella, KN4LF
Retired Space & Atmospheric Weather Forecaster
Plant City, FL, USA
kn4lf@arrl.net

NWS Tampa Bay, FL SKYWARN Observer #HIL-249

Plant City, FL NWS CWOP Weather Station #AR692 Live Data: http://www.kn4lf.com/index1.html
Plant City, FL NWS CWOP Weather Station #AR692 3 Minute Data: http://www.kn4lf.com/index.html
Plant City, FL Daily Climatological Weather Data Archive Blog: http://www.kn4lf.com/kn4lf22.htm
Florida Daily Weather Discussion Blog: http://www.kn4lf.com/flwx1.htm
Florida Raw Weather Forecasting Product Links: http://www.kn4lf.com/kn4lf13.htm
Global Warming Refuted: http://www.kn4lf.com/kn4lf42.htm