ORLANDO, Fla. – As plenty of moisture and energy remains in place over Central Florida, we will once again see on and off scattered showers Thursday across Central Florida.
Expect a 50% coverage, with some heavy downpours in the afternoon. Localized flooding will be the primary concern over the next couple of days.
By the end of the weekend, rain chances will be lower.
High temperatures will be in the mid-80s into next week. The average high in Orlando for this time of year is 83. The record high on this date is 95, set in 1919.
Officially, Orlando received 0.03 inches of rain Thursday, putting its surplus at 1.31 inches for 2020. Since September 1, however, Orlando has a rain surplus of 4.32 inches.
Pinpointing the tropics
Hurricane Epsilon, located a few hundred miles southeast of Bermuda, churned into a major Category 3 storm Wednesday, but it will move away from the United States and Canada as a front steers the system to the east.
Meantime, a trough of low pressure located over the western Caribbean Sea is producing a large area of disorganized showers and thunderstorms, extending near Jamaica, the Cayman Islands, and Cuba.
Development of this system is unlikely to occur during the next few days as it passes near western Cuba and moves over the Straits of Florida.
By late this weekend or early next week, however, some slow development is possible while the system moves generally northeast from near the northwestern Bahamas toward the western Atlantic. Regardless of development, locally heavy rainfall is possible over portions of Cuba, South Florida and the Bahamas through early next week.
The National Hurricane Center gives the system a 20% chance of developing tropical characteristics over the next five days.