It's not if it'll rain...it's exactly when & how much...& how intense will thunderstorms become. A very dynamic storm system is organizing from Texas eastward along the Gulf Coast & will bring a good soaker to the First Coast. A warm front will move northward Thu. night -- & with the help of a well-defined upper level disturbance -- developing showers & thunderstorms across Central & Northern Florida & quickly overspreading Southeast Georgia. This activity will primarily produce heavy rain but a few storms could produce some hail. Thursday...low pressure will be organizing over the deep south across Louisiana, Mississippi & Alabama. Organization will be slow initially but as upper level "energy" phases over the Missouri & Ohio River Valley's, the low should then intensify pretty quickly as it moves near or just north & west of Atlanta & then continues north/northeast not too far from the I-95 corridor. With this expected scenario, scattered showers & storms should continue through the day Fri. with locally heavy rain + the possibility of a few severe storms with strong winds. An isolated tornado can't be ruled out, but the focus for tornadoes should end up farther north closer to the warm front. A cold front will then move through the First Coast Fri. night likely preceded by a squall line of storms that will have the potential to produce damaging winds, some hail & an isolated tornado. At this point the greatest storm threats for the First Coast -- the most widespread, in other words -- looks to be strong winds & rainfall total that should easily reach 1-2" with local amounts of 3"+ through early Sat.
Once the cold front moves through, strong northwest winds will blow Sat. ushering much cooler air with the possibility of a light inland freeze for some areas early Sun.
The Climate Prediction Center has issued an update to their U.S. Seasonal Drought Outlook (see map below), & it reflects good news for the interior Southeast where recent rains have helped & there's anticipation that such a pattern could persist through spring. While there's been some short term improvement in South Ga. & North Fl., there remain 2 reasons for concern:
(1) Long term rainfall deficits remain very high ranging from 15-25", locally more.
(2) Anticipation is for a dry spring.
Story below released from NOAA -- "ocean deserts". There is acknowledgment related to the possibility this is a decadal event.
Study Shows Ocean “Deserts” are Expanding
The least biologically productive areas of the oceans are expanding much faster than predicted, according to a new study by researchers at NOAA and the University of Hawaii. This change in ocean biology, linked to the warming of sea surface waters, may negatively affect the populations of many fish species trying to survive in these desert-like environments.
Between 1998 and 2007, these expanses of saltwater with low surface plant life in the
Pacific and Atlantic Oceans grew by 15 percent or 6.6 million square kilometers, according to the
study which appears in Geophysical Research Letters. The expansion is occurring at the same time that sea surface temperatures are warming about one percent or 0.02 to 0.04 degrees Celsius
a year. The warming increases stratification of the ocean waters, preventing deep ocean nutrients
from rising to the surface and creating plantlife.
These barren areas are found in roughly 20 percent of the world’s oceans and are within
subtropical gyres - the swirling expanses of water on either side of the equator.
“The fact that we are seeing an expansion of the ocean’s least productive areas as the subtropical gyres warm is consistent with our understanding of the impact of global warming. But with a nine-year time series, it is difficult to rule out decadal variation,” said Jeffrey J. Polovina, an oceanographer with NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service in Honolulu, who authored the study along with NOAA’s Evan A.Howell and Melanie Abecassis of the University of Hawaii.
The evidence of this expansion comes from data collected by a sensor aboard NASA’s orbiting
SeaStar spacecraft. The Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor, called SeaWiFS, is a unique tool that maps ocean biological productivity around the globe. This visual sensor reads reflective color to measure the density of chlorophyll in phytoplankton, the microscopic plants that are the base of the marine food web.
The research showed that the areas of low productivity in the Pacific Ocean are expanding from the center toward Hawaii. In the Atlantic Ocean, the least productive areas of the subtropical gyre are expanding at an even more rapid rate eastward across the Caribbean toward Africa. The low-productivity zones, likened to deserts, now cover an estimated 51 million square
kilometers in the two oceans. The least productive area of the Indian Ocean shows the
same trend, but there has been too much variability for it to be statistically significant.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, an agency of the U.S. Commerce
Department, is dedicated to enhancing economic security and national safety through the prediction and research of weather and climate-related events and information service delivery for transportation, and by providing environmental stewardship of our nation's coastal and marine resources. Through the emerging Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS), NOAA is working with its federal partners, more than 70 countries and the European Commission to develop a global monitoring network that is as integrated as the planet it observes, predicts and protects.
