More Frosty Cold Weather... Weekend Rain?

I've had a few reports of frost in northern parts of the viewing region this morning and suspect we'll have another bout of patchy frost Thanksgiving Day morning.

High pressure is sliding into Florida after the passage of yesterday's cold front. Winds will be steady from the north today but under control and temperatures will only rebound into the upper 60s with a few spots around 70 especially south of the bay. Now, as we move into tonight, the surface high will position itself directly on top of the area and this will create favorable conditions for a temperature plunge once the sun goes down today with the combination of clear skies, very little wind and cold dry air. However, I'm not 100% sure we'll have perfectly clear skies through the night and this may save quite a few areas from a hard freeze. My forecast reasoning, we have a batch of mid and high levels clouds from Texas into Louisiana this morning on satellite imagery. Model data brings some of this cloudiness across our skies tonight with favorable upper level winds from the WNW. If we can manage to go partly cloudy for a chunk of the night, temperatures might stay up several degrees. Of course, if the clouds are sparse or much too thin, we'll definitely realize a freeze in many spots to the north with areas of frost all around the area.

Today: Mostly sunny and pleasantly mild. High 68.

Tonight: Mostly clear to partly cloudy. Lows from 31 to 44 (north to south)

Thanksgiving: Partly sunny early then mostly sunny. High around 70.

Rest of the forecast... calm weather through Friday followed by an interesting pattern deep into the weekend and early next week. I'm seeing mixed signals on the potential development of an unsettled pattern for Florida. My personal forecast confidence would increase tremendously if I saw more consensus amongst the assortment of computer models. That said, if things come together just right, we would see the potential for a nice soaking rain into a part of the weekend into Monday of next week followed by a shot of some cold air Tuesday. Stay tuned!!!

Forecast by meteorologist Chris Suchan