ORLANDO, Fla. – There are a few different things contributing to a gloomy setting in Central Florida like we saw throughout your Saturday. Tomorrow looks to be a continuation since none of the factors playing a role in our local weather pattern are trying to get out of here in a hurry.

You’ve probably already noticed the low and mid cloud above our heads today racing east to west across our area.

Gusty winds still buffet the eastern shores of Florida, all thanks to a strong pressure gradient force pushing winds at a near perpendicular angle to our peninsula.

A combination of strong high pressure over the eastern seaboard, particularly the Appalachian mountains and the Mid-Atlantic region north of us, alongside a weak tropical disturbance previously highlighted by the National Hurricane Center running along a decaying frontal boundary over South Florida keeps things pointed in our direction.

The high pressure is expected to meander further east into the Western Atlantic over the next few days, but because of the very broad clockwise flow in the winds around the center, we’ll continue to see breezy conditions and easterly flow for us until about Tuesday or Wednesday.

That same stationary boundary mentioned above, runs along the outer edge of this area of high pressure. Since we’re not seeing much to disrupt the flow around the high or coming in from the south out of the tropics, a consistent feed of moisture persists.

What does this mean for us?

Rain will stay in your forecast tomorrow and through the first half of the upcoming week. It won’t mimic what we’d observed during the summer months either, since this is a far different mechanism at play.

Sunday will start off with intermittent showers and some light rain, especially the closer you get to our east coast. Then throughout the day, where the sun does manage to break through clouds, thanks to all the available moisture we’ll get even more development of heavier rain bands.

They’ll still be moving mostly east to west across the peninsula, steered by the dominant easterly flow we’ll have hanging with us throughout much of the week.

Because of these breezy and rainy conditions, temperatures will be pretty tame. You’ll notice the humidity, but a lot of us if not all of us won’t succeed in reaching the 90 degree afternoon high. In fact, as October continues on we’ll see less and less of that altogether which is fantastic news.

A lot of these clusters of rainfall won’t be too “high” in terms of vertical extent. Since we’re seeing such fast winds both down where we are, and the higher you go in the atmosphere, they’re unable to really get strong.

The more rain that falls, also keeps the lowest portions of our environment relatively cool. If you think about the atmosphere like a multi-tiered cake, the cooler the first tier is, the less likely storms grow into tiers two and three.

That’s why you probably didn’t see a lot of lightning today, nor hear much in the way of thunder throughout your Saturday. Some areas could see more organized storms try to come together, and then you will get some snapping, crackling, and popping on occasion.

But the main threat between tomorrow and about Wednesday remains water piling up in very short periods of time.

Our next system looks to change things up a bit by Thursday and Friday. Rain chances should start to drop by then, and we’ll start to see periods of more sunshine versus all this almost wintry gloom that we’re dealing with for our current weekend.