Thursday, September 27, 2012

Weekend Front Brings Rain

By Jay Grymes & Steve Caparotta

Titan9 Doppler was picking up showers and even a few t-storms over the coastal parishes and into the greater New Orleans area today, a reflection of the increased moisture that has been building over our area. A few of those showers have made it into parishes just south of Baton Rouge as of 5 p.m.

Our thinking is that the low- and mid-level moisture will continue to increase over the viewing area into Friday and the weekend. After a partly cloudy night and some morning fog for Friday’s early commute, we’re expecting more clouds for the afternoon and adding in a 30% chance of rain for the afternoon and early evening. Friday’s high will be near 90°, and the additional humidity will give the afternoon a summertime feel.

But everything changes dramatically into the weekend as a southbound cool front interacts with a large disturbance over the region, keeping most of us “wet” for both Saturday and Sunday: NOT good news for LSU Tiger tailgaters!




The timing through the weekend and into early next week is still a little up in the air, but it looks like the front works through the state on Saturday into Sunday. The NWS Hydrometeorological Prediction Center (HPC) even indicates that a surface low will develop along the Texas Coast on Sunday and track eastward across southern Louisiana on Sunday into early Monday. If that scenario does evolve, Sunday could be as wet, if not even wetter, than Saturday. In addition, the rains could linger into the first half of Monday before the frontal complex exits to the east.

After the drenching many succumbed to during Isaac, it has been a fairly dry September for most WAFB neighborhoods. A little rain won’t hurt, and water levels along most area bayous and streams are low enough to be able to handle the wet weekend. The latest HPC regional forecast is suggesting widespread rains of 1.5” to 3.0” over the next five days. While we could see a few stronger t-storms over the weekend, we are not concerned -- at this point -- about any serious threats of widespread active or severe weather.

Nadine remains an active tropical storm (TS) in the east-central Atlantic -- ‘she’ has re-intensified a bit today, with 4PM max-sustained winds estimated at 60 mph. The National Hurricane Center 5-day forecast keeps ‘her’ at TS-intensity through the end of the month and into early October. Should Nadine make it through the 5 days as a tropical storm (October 2nd), ‘she’ will then have held onto TS or hurricane strength for 21 days, one of only a handful of Atlantic storms to survive that long.

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