Marine Weather and Tide Forecast for Panama City, FL

NEAR TERM
(Today and tonight)
Issued at 233 AM EDT Wed Apr 30 2025

Satellite-derived PW imagery shows a vast expanse of dry air extending from northeast Florida out to Bermuda and beyond. At the western edge of the dry air, the 00z JAX balloon sounding from Tuesday evening observed a dry Precipitable Water (PW) value of 0.97 inches. Light easterly flow through the lowest 10,000 feet of the atmosphere will carry that drier air west today, working to eliminate rain chances over our Eastern Time Zone counties. The dry air will not quite extend west of the Chattahoochee and Apalachicola Rivers. So the the atmosphere over the FL Panhandle and Southeast Alabama will still be moist enough to support scattered afternoon convection.

Patchy fog early Thursday morning will follow a similar trend, favoring where the moister air remains over the Panhandle and Alabama Wiregrass.

SHORT TERM
(Thursday through Friday night)
Issued at 233 AM EDT Wed Apr 30 2025

The dry mid-level air will finally nose in further west into the Central Time Zone on Thursday, shutting down convection in the same way that it will do further east today.

On Friday, we will start to see modest height falls, as a weak piece of southern stream energy comes into phase with a mid-latitude 500 mb trough that will cross the Mid- and Upper-Mississippi Valley regions. A surface cold front will cross the Mid-South region, and low-level flow across our region will turn solidly southwest.
Moisture will be trying to recover but will ultimately be lacking.
The nearest deeper moisture will be over near the I-65 corridor from MOB to MGM, with the southeast fringe bringing chance PoPs to SE Alabama.

LONG TERM
(Saturday through Tuesday)
Issued at 233 AM EDT Wed Apr 30 2025

A cold front will slowly push from central Alabama into southeast Alabama and southwest Georgia late Saturday. Better moisture will have finally returned along and south of that front, with PW values in the somewhat 1.3-1.5 inch range, which is typically considered marginal for supporting deep, moist convection. We will also be under cyclonic flow aloft on Saturday, in the base of a fairly amplified trough extending south from the eastern Great Lakes. Once you throw in a dose of seabreeze convergence too, there should be enough sources of lift to support 40-60 percent rain chances across most of the region. Moderate convective instability and 20-25 knots of somewhat unidirectional deep-layer shear should get some gusty multi-cell convective clusters moving across the landscape.

The front will be a slow mover, so 20-40 percent rain chances will linger on Sunday, with the highest rain chances closer to the Suwannee Valley.

On Monday and Tuesday, GEFS plume diagrams show an uncommonly large range of possibilities in its parameters, suggesting low confidence with any specifics of the forecast next Monday and Tuesday.

A piece of spin in the base of Saturdays upper trough will cut off and become orphaned somewhere between the Southeast U.S. and the Greater Antilles. Yes, that's a wide range of possibilities. An upper high will develop over the Upper Mississippi Valley and effectively trap the orphaned spin further south. When also accounting for a big upper low over the Southwest U.S., this has the hallmarks of an omega blocking pattern. At this time range, there are a lot of possibilities in where the upper trough in the bottom right corner of the omega will set up. Of course, upper low development at lower latitudes is something that models are known to struggle with. If the upper trough sets up over the Bahamas like the GEFS mean shows, then we would have dry and slightly cool northeast flow. If an upper low sets up over north- central Florida, like the 18z deterministic GFS showed, then the southern half of the service area would stay wet on Monday and Tuesday.
There are many other possible outcomes as well. What we do know is that an upper low nearby should keep temperatures near or slight below normal, though there again is uncommonly large spread between the 10th and 90th percentile solutions. Considering the number of dry ensemble members, rain chances will at least trend downward from Sunday to Monday, and again from Monday to Tuesday.

AVIATION
(12Z TAFS)
Issued at 649 AM EDT Wed Apr 30 2025

A brief period of MVFR conditions could arise at all terminals as low-level cumulus develops between 14-17z. Afterwards, ceilings lift higher with heating of the day and VFR conditions should prevail. Light east/southeasterly flow prevails with isolated showers/thunderstorms possible at ECP/DHN after 20z.

MARINE
Issued at 233 AM EDT Wed Apr 30 2025

A high pressure ridge extending from near Bermuda to the Georgia coast will maintain easterly and southeasterly flow across the Gulf waters, with a moderate nocturnal surge late tonight. The high pressure ridge will slip south across the waters on Friday, bringing a decrease in winds. A weak cold front will settle south over the northeast Gulf on Saturday night, followed by a turn to north or northeast breezes on Sunday and Sunday night.

MARINE
Issued at 233 AM EDT Wed Apr 30 2025

A high pressure ridge extending from near Bermuda to the Georgia coast will maintain easterly and southeasterly flow across the Gulf waters, with a moderate nocturnal surge late tonight. The high pressure ridge will slip south across the waters on Friday, bringing a decrease in winds. A weak cold front will settle south over the northeast Gulf on Saturday night, followed by a turn to north or northeast breezes on Sunday and Sunday night.

FIRE WEATHER
Issued at 233 AM EDT Wed Apr 30 2025

Drier air will spread in from the east today. This will confine afternoon thunderstorm chances today over Central Time Zone districts, before the drier air wipes out any chance of a thunderstorm on Thursday. A weak cold front will move south out of Central Alabama on Saturday. At first on Friday, this will bring a return of thunderstorm chances to Alabama districts, then expanding regionwide on Saturday.

HYDROLOGY
Issued at 233 AM EDT Wed Apr 30 2025

No flooding is expected through this weekend, and flooding is unlikely early next week.

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 87 63 85 63 / 0 0 0 0 Panama City 82 66 82 68 / 20 0 0 10 Dothan 85 63 87 64 / 30 20 10 10 Albany 88 63 88 63 / 0 0 0 10 Valdosta 89 62 88 64 / 0 0 0 0 Cross City 87 60 86 62 / 0 0 0 0 Apalachicola 79 68 79 68 / 0 0 0 0

TAE WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES
FL...High Rip Current Risk through this evening for FLZ108-112-114- 115.

GA...None.
AL...None.
GM...High Rip Current Risk through this evening for GMZ735.