textproduct: Key West

KEY MESSAGES

-Warmer than usual temperatures and light to gentle breezes through the weekend. Expect rising dew points through Sunday.

-A potent cold frontal boundary is forecast to push through the Florida Keys on Monday. Winds will rapidly shift northerly and sustained strong to near gale breezes are possible. -The cold air mass behind the front will keep temperatures below normal for most of next week.

DISCUSSION

Issued at 945 PM EST Fri Jan 23 2026 It has been another mostly quiet evening along the Florida Keys outside of some continuing shower activity. Our neighboring KAMX radar has been tracking clusters of showers to the south of the Upper Keys, and expanding to the offshore waters near the Middle Keys. Our 00Z sounding from KKEY shows a marginally favorable low level environment to support this activity, so carrying the slight chance of showers (10%) for the island chain overnight seems plenty reasonable. Satellite has not detected any lightning from these showers, and they aren't expected to really get tall enough to warrant any lightning concerns. If any of these showers cross the our island communities, impactful rainfall amounts are unlikely, and showers should not last very long. It'll just result in a gross feeling outside. Temperatures are currently near 70F, and dew points are only a couple of degrees behind that, so humidity is high across the area. GOES-19 Night Fog layer shows very low clouds across the peninsula, and tracking across our local waters. While this doesn't necessarily mean much for the forecast, these low level clouds could lead to some aviation bumps in the morning. Similar to earlier this morning, if these low stratus decks do come to fruition, they should lift around the time of sunrise. No changes or updates are needed to the current forecast package.

MARINE

Issued at 945 PM EST Fri Jan 23 2026 There are no watches, warnings, or advisories in effect for the Florida Keys local waters. From synopsis, northeast to easterly light to gentle breezes will persist through the overnight. Weak troughing off the eastern coast of Florida continues to fuel light to moderate showers across the Straits. Shower coverage will diminish over the weekend ahead of a potent cold front on Monday. Winds behind the front will rapidly freshen to strong breezes. Near gale force winds are possible Monday Night to Tuesday, but exactly how strong breezes get is uncertain. The period of peak breezes will not last too long; by Tuesday evening, expect breezes to slacken to fresh to strong.

AVIATION

(00Z TAFS) Issued at 945 PM EST Fri Jan 23 2026 Low level stratus clouds will result in a period of significantly lowered CIGS during the nighttime hours. IFR to LIFR CIGs are most likely at MTH as these lower cloud decks will advect off of the peninsula, but a few stray low level clouds may drift over EYW as well. For now, well keep IFR conditions in the TAF for MTH, but can amend EYW to match this if conditions look more likely to deteriorate. Any reduced flight categories should lift either at, or just after, sunrise around 12Z. Otherwise, weather will remain dry and surface winds will be less than 10 knots out of the northeast to east.

PRELIMINARY POINT TEMPS/POPS

Key West 70 79 70 80 / 10 10 10 0 Marathon 69 80 69 82 / 10 10 10 0

KEY WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

FL...None. GM...None.