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SPC has upgraded the severe weather risk from "Slight" to "Moderate" over about the southern half of the peninsula. While that may not sound too bad, keep in mind that they only use three risk levels (slight, moderate, high), with "High" risk generally reserved for big tornado outbreak-type days in the Plains. A Moderate Risk is pretty rare for a landfalling hurricane scenario, so the risk of tornadoes is considered to be somewhat greater than normal for a tropical cyclone: http://www.spc.noaa.gov/products/outlook/day1otlk.html FRONTAL ZONE HAS BECOME QUASI-STATIONARY ACROSS THE CENTRAL FLORIDA PENINSULA...ROUGHLY ALONG/NORTH OF A TAMPA/MELBOURNE LINE. THROUGH EARLY EVENING...ENHANCED CONVERGENCE JUST SOUTH OF THIS FEATURE HAS PROVIDE MAIN FORCING/FOCUS FOR VIGOROUS CONVECTIVE DEVELOPMENT IN ENVIRONMENT WITH MIXED BOUNDARY LAYER CAPE OF 1000 TO 2000 J/KG. DEEP LAYER SHEAR HAS BEEN SUFFICIENT FOR UPDRAFT ROTATION...AND ISOLATED TORNADOES HAVE ALREADY BEEN REPORTED IN TROPICAL BOUNDARY LAYER WITH SURFACE DEW POINTS IN THE MID/UPPER 70S. AS AMPLIFICATION OF CENTRAL/EASTERN U.S. LARGE-SCALE TROUGH CONTINUES TONIGHT...IN ASSOCIATION WITH STRONG SHORT WAVE DIGGING INTO THE LOWER OHIO/TENNESSEE AND LOWER MISSISSIPPI VALLEYS...NORTHEASTWARD ACCELERATION OF HURRICANE WILMA INTO SOUTHWEST FLORIDA COASTAL AREAS WILL OCCUR BY 12Z MONDAY. AS OUTER CONVECTIVE BANDS BEGIN TO SPREAD INLAND LATER THIS EVENING...AND LOW-LEVEL WIND FIELDS/SHEAR STRENGTHEN WITH APPROACH OF TROPICAL SYSTEM...TORNADIC POTENTIAL IS EXPECTED TO INCREASE ACROSS MUCH OF SOUTHERN FLORIDA. GIVEN MAGNITUDE OF POTENTIAL INSTABILITY EVIDENT IN LATEST SOUNDINGS...THIS RISK APPEARS RELATIVELY SUBSTANTIAL. POTENTIAL FOR ISOLATED STRONG TORNADOES EXISTS...PARTICULARLY LATE TONIGHT IN OUTER BANDS EAST/NORTHEAST OF LOW-LEVEL CIRCULATION CENTER AS IT APPROACHES LANDFALL. |