Orlando weather: Central Florida will see blend of sunshine, clouds for Thursday

ORLANDO, Fla. - Tonight remains primarily clear with light winds. Temperatures are in the 40s from The Villages to Gainesville and the low-50s elsewhere. For Thursday and Friday, it will be a blend of sunshine and clouds with temperatures in the upper 60s for highs and light winds.

BEACH FORECAST: Surf about 1-3 feet with low to moderate rip current risk. High tide from midday through the end of this week. Low tide in the evenings.

THEME PARK FORECAST: Cool mornings and warm afternoons. It looks very nice for the next few days.

LONG RANGE & DAYTONA 500 FORECAST: A very slow-moving front will move across Florida this weekend. It will cause extremely cloudy skies all weekend and a prolonged period of showers and non-severe storms. Rain will build and develop gradually during the day on Saturday and will be going across the entire area by Saturday evening and overnight. Rain will be ongoing all Sunday morning, then slowly begins to push eastward on Sunday PM. 

Models still disagree on specifically when the rain will end. Some models clear the rain (It still remains cloudy, but there is no more rain) around early afternoon, meaning maybe a delayed start to the Daytona 500. Another guidance suggests it will rain through the evening on Sunday, likely meaning the Daytona 500 gets postponed to Monday this year. 

We should know much more about the timing of the rain on Thursday afternoon when better model guidance becomes available. 1-3" of rain looks likely area-wide this weekend. Clouds are slow to clear on Monday morning with some sprinkles lingering. Things will get brighter again by Tuesday next week.