🔴NEWS 6 WEATHER LIVE | Turning Warmer And Drier In Florida

Added: 2026-05-16

[00:00:06]What's going on, guys? Meteorologist Jonathan Kegis back with you on a Wednesday night. As we are rolling right on through the week, we still have some downpours out there as we speak. They are not too terribly heavy, at least in comparison to what we had earlier this evening on the coast or uh earlier in yesterday afternoon into the evening, but where we have them uh they are coming down at a pretty good clip. So, we're going to get right over to the radar tonight. We're taking a live look in Apopka with our from our friends at Weather STEM uh and also Daytona Beach tonight. You still see the breeze kind of letting the flag blow in the wind there. We have the downpours right around the Orlando area. Also parts of East Orange County. Uh St. Cloud right around CM, the attractions area. Had a report Epcot was getting pretty wet tonight. We'll zoom in. There was the downpour that just came through Epcot and quickly in and out. Uh if you're hanging around Disney and may be pulling up this live stream as we're tracking some downpours tonight that is pretty much leaving us alone and now pushing back to the east um going forward. CM back into St. Cloud again downpours are still there.

[00:01:16]St. Cloud early heads up that that's kind of moving into your area over the next fiveish minutes on the south side of Lake Toho. Uh north side of Lake Toho, we are nice and dry. Wedgefield, Bithlo, Christmas, this is kind of splitting the three of you guys. Uh pretty much working down the beach line tonight. There we are in Weahhati that continues to slide back to the east.

[00:01:38]We're dry along the coast now after some activity earlier. We also have a couple of stray downpours just north of us into Land moving out of Pearson. Nothing too terribly heavy right now anyway. And then also along the 75 corridor just coming out of Belleview, a nice healthy downpour. Taking a trip down I 75 tonight on the west side of the villages, southwest side of the villages, closer to Wildwood into Coleman, Fruitland Park. Good evening.

[00:02:05]We are dry right now, but a couple of downpours are around. So again, we do have a few things out there. We showed you the future radar at uh 5:30 and 6, and that pretty much hit the nail on the head, these popcorn downpours in the humidity. um and the humidity kind of bubbling back up. That is something though that is going to change over the next couple of days. Some drier air coming back in, some less humid air coming back into central Florida and that is going to change things up big time for our weather at least for a short time. We are getting closer and closer and closer to the climatologically speaking wet season.

[00:02:43]And from the humidity perspective anyway, we had a taste of that. It was soupy and kind of gross out there for the last couple of days. Uh almost to the level of what we would typically feel on a midsummertime afternoon, at least from the humidity perspective.

[00:03:00]There is the stall front. There's that area of low pressure. You see that counterclockwise air flow um kind of working its way through that is helping to deliver some of the dry air back down the Florida Peninsula. It's working its way as we speak and that's going to be something again that we see going forward over the next couple of days. I think the water vapor imagery tells it perfectly. There's all the moisture from yesterday kind of pushing back towards Bermuda and off the southeast coast of the United States.

[00:03:32]And then we have all of that orange that is blasting through the north Gulf Coast into the northern half of Central Florida. And that is going to help to kind of put a pause on the afternoon and evening thunderstorm chances that we've had over the past couple of days. So certainly a taste of the wet season.

[00:03:53]Most of that though was generated by a front rather than the heating of the day. Seab breeze stuff. So not the wet season just yet. Although it felt like it a lot over the last couple of days.

[00:04:05]Different kind of forcing mechanism to get those thunderstorms out. But nonetheless, we are close and we will take it. had some questions yesterday about what it will do to the drought.

[00:04:13]I'm not in uh I am not anticipating really any change on the drought monitor. Most of that really all of that rain came after the period that would reflect on Thursday's drought monitor. It's the rain up until every Tuesday morning.

[00:04:32]Most of that came Tuesday afternoon and evening. So, I do not expect much of any change in either direction on the drought monitor tomorrow.

[00:04:41]But what did change, and we knew this was coming. Look at this. This is a nice bite out of the daily drought index. And this is what really tracks I don't want to say the daily fire danger because there's also meteorological aspects like the wind, the relative humidity, and things like that that go into making the fire danger forecast. But this is kind of the fire fuel where we stand. And we always say 500's the benchmark. That's when we start getting a little dicey.

[00:05:14]We're really above 400. We start getting dicey. 500 it starts to get eh. That's when most burn bands come into play. And then 600 is really nasty. And then obviously the higher you go, uh, we start to get really, really critical. We had a bunch of spots yesterday above 600.

[00:05:33]And now look at this. Sumpter County. We are one of the big winners from yesterday.

[00:05:41]Yesterday alone, we shaved off 143 points.

[00:05:47]Crazy.

[00:05:52]Blue Arrow mentions that Putinham we improved about 100 points over the last two days. I mean, we were approaching that 600 number as well and now we're doing a little better anyway. Really, a lot better. But still, we want to be we want to be kind of where Flaggler County is or even better than that in the blue.

[00:06:10]We want that blue color to show up everywhere.

[00:06:13]Bvard, we're at 390. So, we shaved off nearly 100 points just by yesterday alone. 134 we shaved off in OciOla County. This is why I like looking at this uh index because it tells the story and we can really compare it from day to day on what that rain did to the soil moisture. Long way to go to bust the drought. We need basically what happened yesterday.

[00:06:40]Maybe not that extreme, but we definitely need the daily thunderstorms out there to replenish some of the groundwater that we have lost. So, it was it was very very helpful because we were starting to get up into that 650 range. Marian, we still need help. Everybody still needs help, but we'll take what we can get for sure. Uh yesterday, drier air comes in tomorrow and for the next couple of days. I'm going to show you the change in the weather pattern. And then we're going to look nationally a little bit to show you how it's all related from the things coming upstream to Central Florida.

[00:07:22]We're going to talk about that part in the next portion of the show after this short break. I'll see you guys in about 3 minutes.

[00:10:31]All righty, guys. Welcome back to News6 Weather Live at 9:30. Hope everybody is having a great evening tonight uh on a some places rainy Wednesday evening. Jod is seems very very excited about the rain. She said it's pouring here in Orlando where we are in a bunch of exclamation points. It's been great the last couple of days minus the damage. We did have a little bit of damage yesterday in the Ovido area. So again, didn't go completely unscathed, but most of us got the rain without the damage.

[00:11:04]So that is fantastic uh for the most part. But boy, it has been nice. Okay, I had another comment in here during the break. I believe it was Kimberly about the due points. Uh I'm trying to find that comment. There are so many in there. Thank you guys for interacting.

[00:11:20]And by the way, if you're watching on News6 Plus and want to join the conversation, what some people I know do uh since there's not a comment feature yet on News6 Plus, you can dial up the New S6 YouTube page on your phone and then you can comment that way. I can bring them over or you can just shoot me an email jk keguswkmg.com and uh we can uh interact that way as well. That's the best part about the show. That's my favorite part is the interaction that we have uh on a nightly basis every Monday through Friday uh 9:30 p.m. Okay, so Kimberly talked about the due point in talking about sweaty and yuck and all that stuff. Here we go.

[00:11:57]The due point is the most important number when it comes to your comfort. I know a lot of times relative humidity or the humidity is 100% is used as describing Florida's humidity. That's technically incorrect because the relative humidity even in the wintertime is basically 100% overnight. The due point reaches the temperature no matter how dry it is on a clear night, calm night, that's when the relative humidity goes up and it goes up in the evening.

[00:12:25]That's why the fire threat relatively goes down because there's more moisture in the atmosphere at that time as we try to reach saturation. So, it's a due point. And once you start to get to that 60 number, you start to feel a little humid. Once you get to 70, it starts to feel pretty disgusting. And then mid to upper 70s, that is just downright brutal and disgusting. And what we have both basically every day from the middle of June, July, August, September, maybe the start of October as well before we get that first cold front uh later on in the dry season to help us out a little bit.

[00:13:08]But you see here, Orlando's in the low 70s. Jacksonville's hanging around 70.

[00:13:13]It's still pretty humid. Look at Atlanta. Look at Nashville. the comfort zone. At least I personally like it when you have due points in the 40s and and low 50s. That's when it's nice and comfortable outside. Kimberly uses the word cruel.

[00:13:28]Uh I like that word. That is that is what it is in the summertime. It's cruel humidity. Um but there's some drier air out there. So this is what we were talking about was going to happen behind this system that did bring us the rain.

[00:13:42]Now this is in the mid levels of the atmosphere. So, this isn't directly tied to the surface, but it is pulling in drier air down above our head. That's what's going to drop the rain chances over the next couple of days. And then some of that makes its way to the surface on the surface cold front that's been kind of hung up through central Florida. Um, that is what brings us the comfort level. So, for that, we're going to turn to the Dupoint forecast. And again, it is pretty good. So, there's where we stand right now. And then look at that gray color. There we go.

[00:14:16]There we go. 40s coming down towards Gainesville, Jacksonville.

[00:14:22]That's about the height of it through Friday.

[00:14:26]Starts to go back up a little bit. And then there's the ugly stuff again. So, we get a couple day break. So, there's Friday. Thursday and Friday look good.

[00:14:39]And then Saturday, it starts to get a little nasty again.

[00:14:45]Uh, and that's obviously going to become more common. Looking at some of the long range stuff, we do start to get an influx of Atlantic moisture and that's going to help to increase the humidity and eventually help to get the wet season started. I don't think there's going to be delay in that. There's been no indication to me um from the stuff that I've looked at long range that there's going to be any kind of delay in the wet season. So that is at least the positive side that we should and then once the once the wet season gets here, if everybody gets in on the party, which again that that part is not guaranteed, especially around the Big Bend, but from a Central Florida perspective, once we get into the wet season, that drought is no match because we're going to generate those seab breezes almost every day. Now, rain going to be hard to come by, I think, over the next few days, but the best opportunity for that is going to be on south on the southwest side where they also obviously desperately need it. So, this is rainfall projections over the next seven days. And let me get the dabber out and make sure I'm in my play mode here so that I can interact on our handy dandy toolbar. Have to let it go through it until I can grab that little dabber.

[00:16:03]Um, while I'm waiting for this graphic to play through, Jod's asking if the rain we got tonight will help the drought numbers. Uh, the daily one maybe a little bit, but no, those what what happened tonight won't do anything, but what happened yesterday certainly will for sure, but tonight won't won't really help much because it's it's just not enough. Um, it's just not enough. There's the rainfall over the next seven days. We really need it. Fort Myers, Cape Coral, Everglades area where those fires continue to burn. Um, inchish towards Cape Coral, Sarasota, much much lower amounts on the southeast corner of the state. So again, proof that we're not yet in the wet season, but we're getting there. We certainly had the taste of the humidity and Elizabeth mentioned about the summers being harsh in Florida. We certainly got a taste of that, no doubt, over the ne the last couple of days. All righty, guys. I have to get my second break in. Keep posting the comments. If you have any questions or comments or concerns, hit me up. Post in the comments. Uh again, you're watching News6 weather live at 9:30. I'll be back in 3 minutes. Thanks for the conversation, guys. I really appreciate you being here on a Wednesday night to keep me company as we uh just shoot the breeze about the weather. I'll see you in three minutes.

[00:17:48]Come on.

[00:18:03]Heat.

[00:18:09]Heat. Heat.

[00:19:24]Heat. Heat.

[00:19:46]Heat. Heat. N.

[00:20:18]All righty, guys. Welcome back to News6 weather live at 9:30. Just a couple of minutes left. Uh there we go. High temperatures on Thursday, May 14th. That would be tomorrow. Already moving through the middle of May. 87 degrees in Orlando. A lot of blue boxes. So, we are still below normal behind this front that eventually kicks off to the south and east. Vero Beach, we're at 84.

[00:20:52]Naples, 85. The only spot above normal tomorrow is going to be Miami where our fronts have basically stopped. This one stalled in between Orlando and Lake Okachchobee um and all that stuff going forward. So, I think uh our fronts are pretty much done. Sebranch 1960. This is a great question. Uh, hey Jonathan, do you think we'll get a super El Nino, could you explain what that is, please?

[00:21:20]Absolutely. So, if you are a fan of staying up with some of these things, uh, you should check out my YouTube page. It is called just_weather, and it's going to go in a lot more detail than the couple of minutes that I still have here tonight. But essentially what a super El Nino is and I and I do think it's technically called a strong or very strong El Nino. The lingo around it is super El Nino. But what that means is that there's this the trade winds. When the trade winds that typically blow from east to west relax a little bit, it brings a lot of warmth that hangs out by Australia, Tahiti in the western Pacific. that comes east a little bit and then kind of settles itself into the central Pacific. Let me see if I have one of my El Nino graphics to show you exactly what I'm talking about. So, this is actually what it means for the hurricane season. But when we're looking at the number exactly to categorize if it's going to be a strong El Nino, a very strong El Nino, it's right in that orange area uh right where it says above normal pretty much. um equatorial Pacific. If that sea surface temperature anomaly gets above two degrees or two and a half degrees Celsius, that's going to be about six or seven degrees above normal, then we would be that strong El Nino. And what that means for us is typically in an El Nino year in hurricane season, it is quieter in the Atlantic side.

[00:22:52]Once we get to the fall and winter, if we are still in there and we should still be in a really strong um really strong El Nino by fall and winter, it means very wet, very stormy for Florida. So, I am expecting that some of the long range climate models are like all over a super wet November, December, January, and February. So, I do not think a drought is coming back next year for Florida, for most of the state. We do have to watch out for some severe weather, though, and then it's the hope that this thing comes and shears everything off.

[00:23:28]Now, with that said, I do think we might be able and I'm going to talk about this um on Friday because on Friday, the Atlantic hurricane season outlooks begin. Remember those daily hurricane ones uh from the hurricane center? You get the yellow blobs, the orange blobs, the red blobs indicating the chance for tropical development. Those daily ones start again on May 15th, and that's also the start of the Pacific hurricane season. So, with that said, I'm going to talk a lot about this that I do believe, and again, I I preface this the other night when we talked about this in our long range forecast segment that I I hate hype. You guys know that if you've been with me. But there is a pretty decent signal that at the very least a nice big slug of tropical moisture could lift out of the Caribbean and then work its way towards the eastern Gulf in early June. That might organize into something tropical. Um conditions are look favorable for that at this point. I mean it's still three weeks away.

[00:24:29]But something that might start quick in terms of the hurricane season, I think was shut off also pretty quick. And there are a lot of the analog gears or the like gears with a very similar setup. Um with a very similar setup, they uh have popped a storm early and then went on to produce only a few more.

[00:24:58]I personally think that is going to happen, but we're going to get into that that talk about a tease. I wish I had more time to get into that now. That's a great question. Um, but we're going to be obviously all over that. And, uh, Friday to kind of kind of commemorate the start of those daily tropical weather outlooks again from the National Hurricane Center. We're going to get into that a little bit. Also, again, if you are interested in I'm going to share, let me put this in the chat real quick.

[00:25:31]That is um the other the just weather page. It's literally just_weather.

[00:25:38]But if you like weather content and like staying up with some of the long range trends and what's going on across the country and then in Florida, follow that page or subscribe to that page. There's a lot of stuff that I've been talking about recently about um the super El Nino.

[00:25:57]And on Friday, I talk tonight in that video about the moisture surge and potential for tropical development in the Eastern Gulf and Caribbean in early June in tonight's video. And then on Friday, um I'm going to show where I personally think the quote unquote hot zones are going to be for any kind of potential land interaction on the Atlantic side. To kind of give something away, I do think it's going to be relatively quiet. I think I'm more aggressively quiet than a lot of other forecasts, but I'm doing a lot of research on this and I'm going to share some of my findings um in that video and then we can break that down a little bit on the on uh Friday's show as well. Uh sorry to I hope every all the damage is okay. There was some pretty nasty storms that rolled on the Gulf Coast of Florida yesterday. two EFz zeros uh touchdown yesterday uh just north of Tampa in that area. Um so some nasty storms for sure causing a little bit of damage to EFzer's again on the Gulf side. All righty guys, I have to get going. Sorry I missed your question.

[00:27:06]I did not see that Melissa. Uh no summer's that that so far does not have anything new. Last year was actually hotter so far.

[00:27:15]Love Kennywood was just there last Christmas for their uh their Christmas lights display and they do a fantastic job. Uh really cool uh with the Christmas stuff that they have going on at Kennywood. All righty guys, I have to run our new meteorologist Jordan Patrick. He is going to be on News 6 at 10 if you want to check him out. If you didn't see him over the weekend, uh he is on. He's going to be kind of my partner in crime in the evenings now. Uh really nice, really awesome. You should check him out. News6 at 10 on the News6 YouTube page or uh on News6 Plus. I will see you guys coming up on News6 at 11 on WKMG CBS affiliate in the greater central Florida area if you are checking us out for the first time. Hope you enjoy the show tonight. I will see you guys tomorrow as we break down drought monitor Thursday. We'll see you then.