Plaincast — the National Weather Service forecast, decoded into plain English

Plaincast decodes the National Weather Service's Area Forecast Discussion — the real forecast, written 3 to 4 times a day by the meteorologist on shift — into plain English. The discussion is where a forecaster explains their reasoning: which models disagree, what they are watching, and how confident they are. Below is the current edition for Miami, with its shorthand expanded. The full experience — an AI plain-English summary beside the annotated original — loads with JavaScript, and every one of the 68 forecast offices has its own edition.

Area Forecast Discussion · National Weather Service Miami (MFL) · issued Saturday, October 24 at 7:45 AM EDT.

Messages

Moderate coastal flooding is expected with each high tide cycle. Major coastal flooding is possible late this weekend into early next week.

Heavy rain and isolated flash flooding is possible across the east coast metros Sunday through Monday.

Strong winds, with gusts over 35 mph are possible Sunday through Monday.

Dangerous marine and beach conditions are expected through early next week.

Short Term

(Today through Sunday) Issued at 307 AM EDT Sat Oct 24 2026

South Florida finds itself at the base of a positively tilted mid-level longwave trough. Water vapor imagery and upper air sounding observations from around the state indicate that deep layer dry air is currently in place across most of Florida, keeping conditions more dry and stable through the region. As the main trough axis swings across the state through tomorrow, unsettled weather will remain across the more unstable Gulf Stream waters. A few isolated showers may hug the Atlantic coastline during the day, but most activity will remain offshore. Deeper moisture remains further southeast over the Bahamas and closer to a stalled boundary near eastern Cuba, where a complex of thunderstorms is currently ongoing. However, here in South Florida, model soundings seem to indicate that moisture content will actually trend drier on Saturday. Precipitable water values will drop from a near average 1.6 inches, to a bottom tenth percentile of 0.8 to 0.9 inches. Models hint at the drier air reaching the surface this time, with dewpoints dropping into the lower 60s through the middle of the day. As a result, chance of rain will be very low across most of South Florida, less than 10% for most areas. In addition to the dry air, subsidence aloft should keep any showers from being able to mature or develop. Coastal convergence may be possible, but there is very low confidence for rain amounts to be anything greater than half an inch through tomorrow afternoon.

Forecast confidence for the Saturday night through Sunday period has quite honestly decreased. Ensemble and deterministic guidance continues to struggle with a solution for the shortwave feature coming off of the Carolina coast. There is less agreement among guidance as to weather this feature develops into a closed mid-level low as it tracks southward along the Florida coastline, or whether it stays an open wave and join the overall longwave troughing pattern. Solutions also differ as to how fast and how far east and south this feature will move over the next two days. This has major implications on the amount of rainfall South Florida may get. A deeper, slower, and more westerly tracking system would increase chances of precipitation areawide. However, most model guidance has continued to trend lower with precipitation amounts. WPC expected rainfall ensemble clusters show that 1 to 1.5 inches through Monday would be the highest confidence scenario to play out. Yet, there is one cluster of solutions that shows a scenario of 3 to 4 inches possible (but this is a lower confidence scenario). Overall, better dynamics aloft and increased streams of vorticity across the region will favor greater shower and storm activity. chance of rain will climb into the 70% to 80% range over the eastern metro. Coastal convergence may allow for several storms to focus along the coastline for several hours, so a Slight Risk of excessive rainfall exits for minor urban flooding along low lying and poor drainage locations.

Breezy northeasterly winds will continue to strengthen through the weekend for all areas. Breezy winds may combine with high surf and unusually high tides over the weekend. This may result in moderate to potentially major tidal flooding for coastal areas along Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach counties. Remember to never drive, walk, or wade across flooded roads.

This is the plain-text edition, decoded without AI so it loads anywhere. Read the whole Miami discussion at /o/MFL/, see what changed since the last one, or open The National Desk for where the weather is today.