The weather is lining up to be a perfect representation of the Fourth of July in Southwest Florida: it's going to be really hot and rainy over the long holiday weekend.
Highs in recent weeks have amped up from the upper 80s to the lower 90s. Now highs are going a notch higher as we get into the meat of the summer heat.
"We're going to have highs in the mid-90s by the end of the week and that's pretty typical stuff," said Rodney Wynn, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, or NWS, in Ruskin, which covers the Fort Myers-Cape Coral area. "It's scattered storms and sea breeze driven weather throughout the rest of the week."
The Fourth of July is among the hottest of major holidays as it falls in the peak of summer, and conditions this year will be different than last year, when the region was in a drought.
"Rain chances are anywhere from a 40% to 70% for each afternoon," Wynn said. "We're in the rainy season right now so that's pretty typical for us. Fortunately, we've gotten some beneficial rainfall and that's good become some areas were in moderate drought."
The Naples-Marco Island area will see similar weather over the Fourth holiday, with showers and thunderstorms a possibility each day.
Most of Southwest Florida will see rain on the Fourth
"It's pretty typical summertime temperatures for the Naples area," said George Rizzuto, a meteorologist with the NWS in Miami, which covers all of Collier County. "Highs will be 92 to 94 degrees each day, so it's going to be a pretty warm holiday. We have about a 60% chance of rain each afternoon."
Early hours of each day are probably the best to head to the beach or get in some family outdoor time as rains will come mostly after lunch and potentially last until sunset.
"You can expect dry conditions early in the day and the rain chances will maximizes in the afternoon to evening hours," Rizzuto said. "They pop up as the sea breeze kicks in and disappear with sunset, so it will be hit or miss who get the rain."
Winds from the Atlantic flow toward and over the peninsula all summer, and the pattern is typically well set by the Fourth of July, Rizzuto said.
"The easterly flow is pretty well established by then," he said.
Tropical plume produced six month's of rain
It may seem like it rains all the time during summer, and in most years it does. But last year much of the Southwest Florida region experienced drought conditions, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA.
"We're slowly erasing that rainfall deficit," Wynn said. "The monthly rainfall was 22.2 inches, and the normal rainfall is 9.7 inches, so it was more than double. That's more rainfall in the month of June for Fort Myers than the normal value for the entire year through June 30."
Lee and Collier counties, on average, have seen just under 29 inches of rain though the end of June, which is 6.8 inches above average, according to South Florida Water Management District records.
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