Marine Weather and Tide Forecast for Cross City, FL

NEAR TERM
(Today and tonight)
Issued at 333 AM EDT Thu May 22 2025

A late season cold front crossed the region last night and is moving southeast down the Nature Coast now. When the front passed TLH late Wednesday evening, the dewpoint dropped from 73F to 64F in a single hour, and dewpoints in the 50s are now common across our Alabama and Georgia counties. As you would expect with a late season front, daytime temperatures today will not be any cooler than Wednesday, but the air mass will be drier. Any chance of rain will be confined to Dixie County, which will be closest to deeper moisture over Central Florida. For most folks, the dry air will shut down rain chances. Then tonight, the drier air will also shut down fog chances.

SHORT TERM
(Friday through Sunday night)
Issued at 333 AM EDT Thu May 22 2025

Dry and seasonably hot weather will continue. A subtropical 500 mb ridge axis over the northwest Caribbean will slowly amplify over the Middle Gulf. Our flow aloft will be slightly north of due west, and our upper heights will slowly rise. Meanwhile, a small surface high will take hold over the northeast Gulf. Any moistening of the air mass will simply be from infusions of low- level moisture with successive recurrences of the afternoon seabreeze, but the mid-levels will be dry.

Starting Friday morning, enough low-level moisture could return to support patchy fog during the hours around sunrise, mainly over the inland FL Panhandle.

LONG TERM
(Monday through Wednesday)
Issued at 333 AM EDT Thu May 22 2025

The low-amplitude 500 mb ridge axis will move east across the region on Sunday night, moving out into the Atlantic on Monday.
The small surface high over the northeast Gulf will also move east of Florida. Southerly surface flow will get underway on Monday, bringing a more meaningful moistening of the air mass. GEFS mean solutions moisten PW values to near 1.5 inches on Memorial Day, which is a crude threshold for getting deep, moist convection along the seabreeze when little other forcing is in play.

A slow-moving upper low will take hold over the Great Lakes on Tuesday and Wednesday. This will push a slow-moving cold front south through Tennessee on Tuesday, then into Alabama and Georgia on Wednesday. Proximity of this feature along with increasing westerly flow aloft (i.e. deep-layer shear) will support and upward trend in convective coverage for Tuesday and Wednesday. By Wednesday, mid-level flow will have a slight cyclonic curvature in the base of the Great Lakes trough, so some deeper-scale lift becomes more plausible.

AVIATION
(12Z TAFS)
Issued at 644 AM EDT Thu May 22 2025

A drier air mass has moved in across the terminals, precluding fog development this morning and Friday morning. We may even struggle to get fair weather cumulus to develop this afternoon. So we have a clear-sky TAF forecast, with seabreeze-related wind shifts for ECP and TLH.

MARINE
Issued at 333 AM EDT Thu May 22 2025

A late season cold front limped into the northeast Gulf last night. In its wake today, gentle to moderate breezes will clock around from northerly to northeasterly. Then a bubble of high pressure will settle over the northeast Gulf waters from Friday through Monday morning. High pressure will move off to the east on Monday, so a return of gentle to moderate southerlies will get underway.

FIRE WEATHER
Issued at 333 AM EDT Thu May 22 2025

Following the passage of a late season cold front over the past 12-18 hours, the main impact today will be a drier air mass, though afternoon temperatures will continue to run a couple of degrees above normal. So Min RH this afternoon will bottom out below 30 percent for most inland locales. High afternoon dispersion is expected today and Friday for Georgia and Alabama districts north of the U.S. 84 corridor. The air mass will start a slow moistening on Friday. It will take until Tuesday of next week to get enough moisture for thunderstorms.

HYDROLOGY
Issued at 333 AM EDT Thu May 22 2025

Flooding is not expected through Memorial Day.

Starting next Tuesday, summerlike thunderstorms enter the forecast, posing the risk of localized and short-lived runoff issues. Rainfall should be somewhat spotty, and river flooding is not expected.

SPOTTER INFORMATION STATEMENT

Spotter activation is not requested. However, spotters are always encouraged to safely report significant weather conditions when they occur by calling the office or tweeting us @NWSTallahassee.

PRELIMINARY POINT TEMPS/POPS
Tallahassee 91 66 94 68 / 0 0 0 0 Panama City 86 70 88 72 / 0 0 0 0 Dothan 90 65 91 67 / 0 0 0 0 Albany 91 65 92 66 / 0 0 0 0 Valdosta 91 65 93 68 / 0 0 0 0 Cross City 86 62 92 65 / 20 0 0 0 Apalachicola 83 69 85 71 / 10 0 0 0

TAE WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES
FL...High Rip Current Risk through this evening for FLZ112-114.

GA...None.
AL...None.
GM...None.