ORLANDO, Fla. – Happy Friday, Central Florida! I wish we had some great news to share as we prepare for the LAST weekend of 2024, but rather we need to address some new developments in the weather department.

If you’ve been following us this week, we’ve discussed our next few frontal features that are expected to push south into the Florida Peninsula as we move through the back end of this weekend and next week. New Year’s Eve appears to be clear, but we start the day with light rain and showers along our coasts on Friday and are now checking the potential for stronger storms on Sunday.

The Storm Prediction Center has rated Marion County as a minor severe storm threat, meaning one or two strong storms could occur IF conditions are right. This is called conditional severe risk. Let’s break this down together!

So during storms you need moisture, warmth and a trigger. In this case we have all three. The moisture is being forced into Central Florida via the two jet streams to the north and west. Heat, the song and dance of the Sunshine State. The last few days have been warmer and more humid than we expected in the last few weeks. Ultimately, the buoyancy of our cold front will serve as a trigger.

But that comes with conditions! This is where the term conditional comes from. If any of these details go wrong, or we lose the ability to actually ignite the bad weather forecast predicted by our computer models, then the whole setup falls apart. Let’s say we have too much moisture, too much cloud cover, then the warming effect that we’re looking for to trigger these storms doesn’t quite come together.

If the front loses some steam before it enters our view, our trigger will become much weaker and as a result the storms will not dissipate as violently as currently forecast. So this is anything but a slam dunk prediction.

Humidity will continue on Friday and Saturday, as will some fog on the roads early this morning. Rain chances are currently at their highest today, especially near Brevard and Volusia counties. We will then see a decrease in showers on Saturday before our main event begins around midday on Sunday.

Temperatures will not drop as much as we have seen recently. The next front appears to be trying to move away from us before it has a chance to give us as big a cold snap as previous cold fronts. However, later next week we will see another front in the first few days of 2025 that will increase our chances of rain and potentially drop temperatures back below average for some.

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