After reaching the mid-90s on Wednesday, with a record high tied in Naples at 96º, our weather pattern is not going to change much for Thursday. That means a hot, breezy day with a few scattered showers. A sea breeze will try to develop in the afternoon, but with the offshore breeze at 8-12 mph, it will get pinned closer to the coast and not inland as has been the cast so many times this Summer.
We will see a few scattered showers and thunderstorms, but the coverage will only run around 30%. In the early afternoon, the coverage of rain will favor areas north of the Caloosahatchee River. Later in the afternoon, that shifts to the south of the river. By 7:00 p.m., most of the rain will have moved into the Gulf of Mexico with the decaying seabreeze boundary. We’ll be left with another evening that’s dry and mild, but not overwhelmingly humid.
Because of the offshore breeze holding the sea breeze to near the coast, our high temperatures will again run near 95º. The Fort Myers record high is 97º and the Naples record high is also 97º so we will likely stay below those records.
Tracking the Tropics
A new area of interest has the NHC monitoring the western Caribbean Sea and the southern Gulf of Mexico over the next several days. A tropical wave has a low chance of developing over the next 7 days and will likely track north from the Caribbean into the Gulf.
Tropical Storm Franklin is now over the warm water of the Atlantic Ocean, where it will likely strengthen to a hurricane by Saturday. It is tracking east of Florida and will not be an issue for us.
Two other tropical waves are deep in the Atlantic. One has a medium chance of developing over the next 7 days, but as it moves northwest it will stay well east of Florida. The other has a high chance of development but is tracking toward the North Atlantic and will stay well away from the United States.
Be sure to have the “ABC7 WX” app installed on your phone. You can track the tropics with real-time updates when we aren’t on TV. It also has our Hurricane Guide with everything you need to prepare as we head into the peak of Hurricane Season.