Continuing to watch Live Doppler Radar, rain and thunder should clear by early afternoon

Sunday, March 6, 2011  7 a.m.

Good Sunday morning. Our weather team is busy tracking two lines of showers and thunderstorms. Here is the latest from our First Coast News weather app. Notice the first line of rain first thing this morning will likely be just in the form of rain. Your live doppler radar is not showing any lightning. This should be enough to stabilize our atmosphere enough so we will not have to worry about any widespread severe weather like we saw yesterday across portions of Louisiana. At the same time the actual upper-level disturbance responsible for yesterday's severe weather is quickly lifting northeastward. The combination of the two should keep our second line of showers and thunderstorms that moves through by late morning and early afternoon on the tamer side. We could still have some wind gusts near 40 mph. We will continue to watch the second line that moves our way closely. But for now the news is good. The Storm Prediction Center does not have our area in a severe risk and I have decreased our chances of having any damaging wind gusts to 5% or less.

The latest severe weather indices have also decreased overnight for us.

Lifted index is now a more stable -0.5......usually for strong storms in Florida we want this number to be at -3 or less

The CAPE value or convection available potential output has also come in at 330 which is less than the 600 we saw yesterday.....usually for strong storms in Florida you want this value in the thousands

The Energy Helicity Index is also coming in near zero. This same index was between 2 and 3 yesterday in Louisiana. Anything at 1 or above can be cause for concern.

Latest convective wind gust potential for us has dropped from 46 mph to 41 mph in last 12 hours.

Remember models are only guides and we will still keep our eye to the sky today for some possible gusty storms by late this morning and early afternoon. But I do not expect scenes like the one you see above in Louisiana yesterday to be repeated today here at home. It does look like we pick up some needed rain while dodging the worst of the strong thunderstorms. We will clear out as expected as we head through the afternoon. If anything changes our weather team will be the first to let you know and make sure to head to firstcoastnews.com to track these two lines of rain. We have at least at 2 minute advantage with your only live doppler radar which comes in huge on days like today. Have a great day!