Weekend Weather Outlook Returns to Normal with Tropical Storm Emily's Demise

The dissipation of Tropical Storm Emily in the Caribbean Sea on Thursday removed much potential for change in our weekend’s weather.

The possibility of a tropical storm passing off the state’s east coast threw a small question into the forecast for the next three days.

Even if the storm passed well out to sea on the other side of the state, forecasters at the National Weather Service office in Ruskin couldn’t discount its potential to have some effect on Saturday, mainly more clouds and rain.

Instead of Emily possibly smearing more cooling clouds over us, the storm’s destruction on the mountains of Hispaniola leaves Saturday looking similar to Friday, only possibly hotter.

With high pressure still controlling most of the conditions, things will remain hot, though forecasts starting Friday and through the weekend do return rain chances closer to what we expect to see this time of year.

Forecasters say we’ll see 40 percent rain chances on Friday and possibly 50 percent on Saturday.

Temperatures, though, will be above normal and hit the low 90s around New Port Richey and middle 90s away from the coast in Land O’ Lakes.

The average daytime high for early August is 90 degrees, and the average low temperature is 76.

So it’s back to afternoons when the combination of temperature and humidity will make things feel like about 105.

That’s except for Saturday, when the weather service says the heat index could be close to 110 degrees, especially inland.

We can also expect the nights to continue providing almost no relief as the low temperatures remain not so low, falling into the lower 80s near the coast and only a few degrees cooler inland.

On Wednesday morning, low temperatures set several records not for the coolest temperature on Aug. 3, but for the warmest Aug. 3 morning in Tampa, St. Petersburg and Sarasota.

The low of 82 in Tampa and St. Petersburg broke the record of 81 degrees in 1941 in Tampa and of 80 degrees set in 2009 in St. Petersburg.

In Sarasota, the low of 80 degrees broke the mark of 79 degrees set in 1954.

The remains of Emily, a large area of thunderstorms, will continue to drift to the west northwest over Cuba and the Bahamas.

There is a chance the storm will reform once it passes Cuba, forecasters at the National Hurricane Center said.

Emily, never a well-formed storm, was torn apart by the mountains of Hispaniola on Thursday afternoon, contrary to all but a few of the intensity forecast models that predicted Emily would survive and become a hurricane by Sunday or Monday.

That leaves the 2011 season with five named storms but no hurricanes. Typically, the first Atlantic hurricane arrives by Aug. 10.

And typically, a hurricane season doesn’t produce five named storms until Aug. 31.