Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Another Beauty Thursday!

By Jay Grymes & Steve Caparotta


Yep -- now THAT’s more like it!  How about that lovely Wednesday weather -- if only we could enjoy a nice week-long run of days like today!  In fact, if this weather would just hold through the coming weekend, we’d all be smiling and whistling happy tunes!
But all good things must end, and unfortunately, this great weather will fade just as the weekend gets here.
For now, Thursday looks great, and the weather holds up for another nice Friday afternoon and downtown Live After Five, but the weather “heads south” (as they say) late Friday and into Saturday. 

A storm system currently over the northwestern quarter of the U.S. will move into the Plains on Thursday and Friday and become better organized, picking up additional moisture as well.  By late Friday, the storm system will sling a cold front across Texas as it advances to the east, reaching the TX/LA state line during the latter half of the day.
For now, it looks like the front and its associated stormy weather doesn’t get into the WAFB area until very late Friday or early Saturday, but all indications are that this will be a fairly wet event, with WAFB rainfall totals likely to run between 0.5” and 1.5” before the rains exit our region.
The tougher question for now is the timing through the day on Saturday.  Differences are not that significant in terms of when the wet weather arrives, but we are getting mixed signals as to how long the front and lingering rains will remain in the area before moving off to the east?  Our in-house Titan9 PrecisionCast suggests that most of the rain could be over by around mid-day on Saturday.  On the other hand, other reliable weather forecast models keep the rains in the area through much or most of the day on Saturday, with at least one model hinting at rain late into the night.
At this point, we’re leaning towards a more prolonged event for Saturday, with the rains keeping daytime temps in the 60°s -- we think you should plan on a cool, damp Saturday.  The heavier rains will likely end before lunchtime, but lingering light rains and clouds will make the day feel even cooler than the thermometer tells us.
We get a decent recovery for Sunday, however, with fair skies expected for Sunday afternoon -- just in time for Baton Rouge’s downtown Earth Day festivities!  As mentioned above, Sunday may not start out so nice, with early morning clouds and even a slight chance of an early morning sprinkle or two.  But all’s well by mid-day as skies clear and highs climb into the low to mid 70°s for the afternoon.

In the extended outlook, sunshine rules for Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of next week, with afternoon highs back in the 80°s by or before mid-week.  Yep -- it figures!

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