Florida Continues to be Pounded by Invest 95L...

If you look closely within the yellow circled area on the above visible satellite image, you can see the swirl of clouds associated with the center of Invest 95.  You can see it even better on the zoomed-in image below:

Widespread rain and thunderstorm activity, some heavy, continues well off to the East and Northeast of the center, overspreading much of the Southern half of Florida at this time:

Precipitation will continue to increase across Florida throughout the remainder of today and into tonight, with widespread 2-4 inch totals likely, and localized amounts in excess of 6 inches possible, especially within the purple shaded areas on the image below:

Doppler radar at Key West is indicating sustained 40-50 mph winds just above the surface to the West of that location, spreading East/Northeastward.  Based on these observations, I would expect to see the wind increase out of the South to Southwest at 40-50 mph with gusts to 60 mph across westcentral and southwest Florida by mid to late afternoon.  This trend is supported by the latest GFS model forecast valid at 5pm EDT this afternoon, which depicts sustained winds of 50 mph in the green shaded areas on the image below:

These stronger surface winds will continue to overspread the remainder of the state by late afternoon and into this evening, as shown on the model forecast image valid at 8pm EDT this evening:

...and at 11pm EDT this evening, spreading off to the East:

In addition to the threat of heavy rains and strong winds, isolated tornadoes will also be possible this afternoon and evening, mainly across the southern half of the state.  I would not be surprised to see a Tornado Watch issued soon for this region.

Remember, a system doesn't have to have "a name" to cause problems, and hopefully folks in Florida have been taking this seriously as we've been talking about this for several days now.

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