textproduct: Key West

KEY MESSAGES

- Heat will be the primary weather concern over the next seven days. Heat indices may creep towards 110 beginning this weekend.

- A Saharan Air Layer will begin spreading across the Keys over the weekend into next week, keeping rain and thunder chances slight at best.

DISCUSSION

Issued at 255 AM EDT Sat Jul 11 2026 After multiple rounds of convection brought numerous reports of 45-50 mph wind gusts to the Florida Keys last night, the conditions this morning have been much less intense with just lingering stratiform precipitation in place and much lower winds as a result at this time. This activity was driven by a variety of factors such as a TUTT analyzed at 250mb centered just west of the central Bahamas, a lower level inverted trough feature advancing across the Straits ahead of the TUTT, and outflow boundaries originating from Cuban convection. The lingering stratiform precipitation activity should continue through around sunrise and will mostly taper off thereafter with the departure of the inverted trough and the initial arrival of the next round of Saharan dust. Thus, it should be mostly dry today after the morning precipitation activity tapers off with highs reaching the low 90s.

The next round of the SAL looks to be rather robust with the initial push of dust arriving later today as previously mentioned, though the dust concentrations will not peak until Sunday or early next week. In fact, models show PWATs in the coming days falling to values around 1.50" or possibly a bit less at times, which would be around the 10th to 25th percentile per SPC sounding climatology. As to be expected, the nature of this very dry air mass will yield low to virtually non-existent rain chances in the coming days with PoPs less than 15% through at least early next week. Meanwhile, the aforementioned TUTT will make slow westward progress across Cuba into next week and eventually drift northward towards the northern Gulf coast by mid week. In the low to mid levels, high pressure in the western Atlantic will remain in control throughout this time and this will maintain the east-southeast wind flow regime across the Keys. Overall, it will be a warm and rather dry week for mid July standards given the exceptionally low moisture depth associated with the robust signal with this next SAL event.

MARINE

Issued at 255 AM EDT Sat Jul 11 2026

Gentle to moderate east to southeast breezes will prevail throughout the weekend and into next week as high pressure remains in place across Atlantic. Wind speeds will typically peak in the evenings and decrease slightly during the afternoon hours. In addition, while some brief shower activity may occur on Saturday, mainly the first half of the day, much drier air associated with the next round of Saharan dust will build into the region. This will maintain rain-free conditions through at least early week next week.

AVIATION

(00Z TAFS) Issued at 255 AM EDT Sat Jul 11 2026

Light SHRA this morning at both island terminals should taper off within the first couple hours of the TAF period but any impacts to VSBYs will be minimal given the light nature of the precip. Otherwise, VFR conditions will prevail today with winds out of the ESE around 10 kts.

KEY WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

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