South Florida May Precipitation
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Bocadude85
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Windtalker
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Not in Hollywood....
We had a "TRACE" of rain this afternoon, just enough to wet the top of the ground. Other than that..nada, zip, nothing but HOT HOT HOT 91 degrees.boca_chris wrote:Lots of rain in Coastal Palm Beach, Broward, and Dade this afternoon. I spoke to soon. Keep raining! Better for FL!
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cyclonaut
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Scorpion
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cyclonaut
Scorpion wrote:The fact that it rained today has absolutely no bearing on weather a hurricane will come or not. Do you think a hurricane will come and turn north just because it found out that on May 2nd it rained in that area? The only good news about the rain is that it helps prevent brush fires.
This is the phenomenon that must have caused David to turn north.I wonder who told him about that heavy shower in late May of 79.
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gatorcane
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No Scorpion I would have to disagree with you. I think there is a link between May FL rainfall and FL hurricane strike probability as explained
by my theory below:
I'm not quite sure why people concentrate on a dry "May." While this was true last year for South Florida along the east coast we must not forget that the West Coast of Florida saw lots of rain in May. Actually the west coast got into a summer-time August-like pattern in mid-May in 2004 with East-west coast seabreeze convergence that took place along the west coast with general storm movement off to the west and northwest.
What we saw in May last year was a strong ridge that extended across South Florida that caused an abnormally strong East and Southeast windflow. This flow generally keeps thunderstorm activity well west of the East coast and keeps the activity along the west coast. Typically in May we see W or SW winds that push storms from the Everglades to the East coast. The east wind pattern sets up more in July-September. Sometimes troughs that come far south also fuel the storms. None of that was seen in May last year.
What's abnormal about last year is that we saw the strong East windflow persist all summer that brought plenty of tropical rains to the west coast. In fact the flow was so strong that the west coast seabreeze often times was overpowered by the east winds and this is highly unusual.
Clearly what this indicated was that we were going to see strong ridging in the western Atlantic for most of the summer. Look what happened. All 4 Hurricanes that hit FL went around this ridge and were brought in by the strong East low and mid-level winds.
If May is rainier with less of a pronounced East wind, I expect that we may not see such strong ridging we saw last year. We will see periods of time with ridging but the chances of a hurricane in the Atlantic being in the right spot when this ridging occurs is lower (but not out of the question). The chances of a GOM or Caribbean storm are higher.
by my theory below:
I'm not quite sure why people concentrate on a dry "May." While this was true last year for South Florida along the east coast we must not forget that the West Coast of Florida saw lots of rain in May. Actually the west coast got into a summer-time August-like pattern in mid-May in 2004 with East-west coast seabreeze convergence that took place along the west coast with general storm movement off to the west and northwest.
What we saw in May last year was a strong ridge that extended across South Florida that caused an abnormally strong East and Southeast windflow. This flow generally keeps thunderstorm activity well west of the East coast and keeps the activity along the west coast. Typically in May we see W or SW winds that push storms from the Everglades to the East coast. The east wind pattern sets up more in July-September. Sometimes troughs that come far south also fuel the storms. None of that was seen in May last year.
What's abnormal about last year is that we saw the strong East windflow persist all summer that brought plenty of tropical rains to the west coast. In fact the flow was so strong that the west coast seabreeze often times was overpowered by the east winds and this is highly unusual.
Clearly what this indicated was that we were going to see strong ridging in the western Atlantic for most of the summer. Look what happened. All 4 Hurricanes that hit FL went around this ridge and were brought in by the strong East low and mid-level winds.
If May is rainier with less of a pronounced East wind, I expect that we may not see such strong ridging we saw last year. We will see periods of time with ridging but the chances of a hurricane in the Atlantic being in the right spot when this ridging occurs is lower (but not out of the question). The chances of a GOM or Caribbean storm are higher.
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gatorcane
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I will agree with you Scorpion that May 2nd rainfall may have little bearing. But we need to wait through the rest of May to see if this trough pattern continues or if ridging builds in early and abnormally strong like it did last year in May. Remember how summer-like May was for FL last year...that was a sign that the steering patterns were setting up for the summer.
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cyclonaut
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cyclonaut
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gatorcane
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Yes, I'd have to agree 
Good news for South Floridians as far as hurricane chances! I doubt we will see the abnormally strong and persisten ridging we saw last year when we have troughs like this
that are dumping 2-5 inches of rain across East and South Florida per day.
But let's not get too excited yet, it looks like in a few days we will see the H build in between FL and Bermuda...and next week is looking dry. How will the rest of May play out? The ridging last year waited
until mid-may to show up. Let's see what happens.
Good news for South Floridians as far as hurricane chances! I doubt we will see the abnormally strong and persisten ridging we saw last year when we have troughs like this
that are dumping 2-5 inches of rain across East and South Florida per day.
But let's not get too excited yet, it looks like in a few days we will see the H build in between FL and Bermuda...and next week is looking dry. How will the rest of May play out? The ridging last year waited
until mid-may to show up. Let's see what happens.
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Scorpion
How is 4 days of rain good news for South Florida in terms of hurricane chances? The winter pattern has taken a long time to switch this year, and when it switches to a more summer pattern in late May/early June the troughs will stop digging down and the high will build. Even if we have above normal rainfall you can't automatically call off the season.
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cyclonaut
Scorpion wrote:How is 4 days of rain good news for South Florida in terms of hurricane chances? The winter pattern has taken a long time to switch this year, and when it switches to a more summer pattern in late May/early June the troughs will stop digging down and the high will build. Even if we have above normal rainfall you can't automatically call off the season.
If it rains 1 more day I am just going to take all my supplies back for a refund!!!Even if a monster hurricane comes within 50 miles from my home I will do nothing because I know that because it rained alot the 1st few days of May that it will find a way to miss my town.
Who needs shutters when just a little rain in May is all you need to repell the canes.
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weatherwindow
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