{"id":336990,"date":"2026-07-11T15:31:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-11T15:31:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/336990\/"},"modified":"2026-07-11T15:31:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-11T15:31:11","slug":"what-is-a-tutt-south-floridas-rainy-saturday-morning-explained","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/336990\/","title":{"rendered":"What is a TUTT? South Florida’s rainy Saturday morning explained"},"content":{"rendered":"

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (CBS12) \u2014 This morning South Florida and parts of the Treasure Coast received some much needed rain thanks to a tropical upper tropospheric trough, or TUTT for short.<\/p>\n

So what exactly is it? And why did it help wake so many of us up to thunderstorms across South Florida and the Treasure Coast?<\/p>\n

\"What<\/p>\n

What is a TUTT? South Florida’s rainy Saturday morning explained. (WPEC)<\/p>\n

Let’s break it down.<\/p>\n

Think of the atmosphere like a layer cake. Most of the weather we experience happens in the lower layers, but what’s happening several miles above our heads can have a huge impact on whether we stay dry or end up dodging downpours.<\/p>\n

A TUTT is an area of lower pressure high in the atmosphere, usually about 30,000 to 50,000 feet above the ground. Unlike hurricanes or tropical storms, which spin near the surface, a TUTT stays far overhead. You can’t see it with your eyes, it is visible on weather maps and satellite data.<\/p>\n

One of the easiest ways to picture it is to imagine lifting the lid off a pot of boiling water. As the lid comes off, steam has room to rise. A TUTT works in a similar way.<\/p>\n

As it moves overhead, it helps remove air from the top of developing thunderstorms. That creates extra room for warm, humid air near the ground to rise even faster. The faster that warm, moist air rises, the more clouds and thunderstorms can develop.<\/p>\n

What is a TUTT? South Florida’s rainy Saturday morning explained. (WPEC)<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

That’s exactly what happened overnight across South Florida.<\/p>\n

Our atmosphere was already loaded with tropical moisture, thanks to warm ocean waters and a steady flow of humid air. Normally, that moisture alone can produce scattered showers. But when the TUTT approached from the southeast, it gave those developing storms an extra boost.<\/p>\n

This is called enhanced convection. That’s simply a technical way of saying the atmosphere became more favorable for rising air, allowing thunderstorms to grow taller, stronger and produce heavier rain.<\/p>\n

The National Weather Service noted that the TUTT significantly enhanced convection during the overnight hours, leading to the widespread showers and thunderstorms many communities experienced before sunrise.<\/p>\n

The good news is that a TUTT isn’t something to fear. It isn’t a tropical storm or hurricane, and it doesn’t mean severe weather is guaranteed.<\/p>\n

Instead, think of it as an atmospheric helper. It doesn’t create moisture on its own, but when South Florida already has plenty of warm, humid air available, as it almost always does in the summer, a TUTT can give that moisture just enough of a nudge to produce more widespread and more active thunderstorms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (CBS12) \u2014 This morning South Florida and parts of the Treasure Coast received some…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":336991,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-336990","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=336990"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336990\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/336991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=336990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=336990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=336990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}