I think a couple guys are overlooking something, or assuming...
When the sun returns and the land heats up, so will the water (pretty quickly) is my bet. The Gulf is pretty shallow. I don't think we will have a huge degree of separation b/n the Gulf temp. and afternoon highs for very many weeks. (Not anything like 60 or 65 vs. 85 or 90, anyway).
I have seen the Gulf temp change as much as 15 degrees in 3 days (near shore in our area).
Other than that, I use to pay very close attention to the weather patterns around here and I have noticed a particular pattern to sea breezes along St. Pete Beach. It can get a little hard to describe, but I think the afternoon sea breezes have more to due with high pressure system(s) and where it is sitting (to our west is great... not over the east coast), - and believe it or not- tides seem to influence them as well (at least close to PaG). Sounds crazy, but a strong outgoing tide seems to amp up the sea breeze. High pressure seems to cause an early a.m. NE flow, followed by a possible afternoon s.b.
Also, the typical sea breeze turns on like a frickin' switch - literally 5 knots or 0 knots NE straight to 20 NW in less than 5 minutes. It's pretty awesome to watch it from it's beginning.
They turn off almost as fast and average 2.5 hours in time. So, I usually start driving to the beach when the Skyway sensor says "Zero" (no, I am not joking) if the other variables I observe that day fit my "model". Most of our beach sensors either suck or update AFTER the sea breeze is over... so... you have to anticipate them or get a call early or sumtin.
If you wait til a sensor says "it's blowing" to leave, you will probably get there at the tail end of it.
S.b.s don't happen every day, btw, even during a good season. If I had to guess, maybe 10 out of 30 days.
It's also very common for s.b.s to come in waves of three days. So, if it blows one day good, the next is a good bet (around the same time).
It use to be that March was our premier s.b. month.. the last 3 years or so, April has been the best, up until maybe late May or until it's starts raining in the afternoons.
Who knows what will happen. This area has a HIGH degree of variance with wind/weather, is one thing I have noticed. It's pretty ridiculous and I would never bet on squat around here weatherwise more than 2 days in advance.
