On The Radar with Jess

Oct 2nd: Heavy Florida Rain and a Late-Season Cabo Verde Wave

Jessica Arnoldy Jessica Arnoldy

We've been discussing the potential for heavy rainfall over the Southeast, especially Florida, for much of this week. Scenes like this from our Daytona Beach Weatherstem station will be common across the not-so-sunshine state this weekend:

 

The NHC did highlight an area to watch off of the Florida coast, but it only has a 10% chance to development and the results will be the same regardless. Heavy rain, especially along the east coast of Florida, will lead to the potential of flooding. There is a very sharp gradient between heavy rain and little to no rain, so its a tricky forecast to pay attention to:

Image 21-1The culprit is a stalled front, focusing the moisture along the region that will continue into next week:

ecmwf-deterministic-se-pwat-1759406400-1759492800-1759838400-20In addition to the heavy rain, prolonged onshore flow along the east coast of Florida will lead to elevated surf, rip current risk, and coastal flooding. It doesn't help that we are also approaching a full moon early next week:

ecmwf-deterministic-eastgulf-wnd10m_stream_mph-1759406400-1759492800-1759665600-20This will lead to a continued high risk of rip currents through the weekend and coastal flood alerts: 

Image 10-2-25 at 5.24 PMImage 19-2Past this weekend, we will turn our attention to a system expected to develop in the main development region from a wave that's coming off the African coast. The NHC started highlighting this yesterday and continues to give it a low chance of developing over the next 7 days:

Image 20-1Models remain quite bullish on development and a system could be approaching the Islands this time next week as you can see in the Google AI, Euro, and GFS ensemble members:

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Like we mentioned yesterday, October can be one of the busiest months for hurricanes in South Florida — Hurricane Wilma made landfall on October 24, 2005. That’s why many emergency managers and school districts rely on on-call meteorologists during this stretch of the season. Our team provides real-time briefings, forecast interpretation, and risk alerts that go beyond what’s publicly available.

If your organization could benefit from dedicated meteorology support, reach out to learn more: https://company.weatherstem.com/meteorology-services/ 

 



 

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Jessica Arnoldy, Director of Meteorology Services at Weatherstem
Jessica Arnoldy
Director, Content and Meteorology Services

Jessica brings nearly two decades of broadcast and operational meteorology experience to Weatherstem. She spent 19.5 years as a senior meteorologist at The Weather Channel and holds a BS from Georgia Tech and MS from Penn State. She writes On The Radar to help emergency managers, athletic directors, and operations teams understand what severe weather means for their specific situations.

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