DAY 1

Usually the first day of Hurricane Season is spent blogging about the prognostications and relishing the glory days, but the 2011 season was ushered in with some real activity. A surface low moved right across Central Florida, and like the opening bell to a heavyweight fight, it signaled the beginning of another Hurricane season.

There were no devastating upper cuts thrown in this round however. As you can see from this video that I shot in downtown Orlando this morning, there was nothing but some slightly heavy rainfall which fell straight to the ground I might add. A real tropical disturbance would have a least had some sideways to it. But this is what it looked like in Central Florida from about 10am to about 3:30pm. We didn't even have a 15 mph gust recorded. Volusia County did have a few gusts in the upper 20's though. We did receive some nice rainfall totals; more than 3 inches in Flagler County and several stations near Orlando got just more than 2 inches.


The Storm did survive it's impact with the Florida Peninsula and is now into the Gulf of Mexico. It doesn't look very good at the moment, as the thunderstorm activity and cold cloud tops have died down significantly over the last couple of hours. Conditions in the Gulf are not very favorable for development because of the high sheer from the Westerlies. The water temps have warmed much faster this year in the Gulf and Caribbean but the system is moving too fast to really be able to take advantage of that. It will likely survive for a couple more days, and may even survive it's trek across the Gulf. It is forecasted to make landfall in Northern Mexico. But it has little chance of become the first named storm.


The more interesting disturbance is located just off the coast of Nicaragua. 
Several forecast models have been indicating that something may developing 
there. The most aggressive model has been the Canadian CMC, which is 
developing a strong tropical system in about 3 days from now.

The view from the satellite shows some clustering of thunderstorms in that
area but there is no center of circulation just yet. There is plenty of moisture there but the problem right now is strong wind sheer. That sheer is 
supposed to lift out of the area but not in the next 48 hours. The Hurricane 
Center is only giving it a 20 percent chance to develop before Saturday 
morning.