WAFB FirstAlert Weather Blog

Rains Return by Mid-Week
-- 22 April 2013

There was little to complain about with today’s weather: fair skies through the day and highs up around 80° with low humidity for many WAFB communities -- a nice spring day to follow-up on our outstanding weather weekend.

 

With today’s winds slowly swinging around to the east and southeast, Gulf moisture will slowly increase at the lower levels, reflected by the rise in dewpoints from the 40°s and 50°s over the weekend to the low 60°s by tonight into Tuesday morning. That means Baton Rouge lows tonight will only drop to the low 60°s compared to the chilly mornings on Saturday (39°, a record low) and Sunday (44°). We may even see a few patches of fog for Tuesday morning, but not enough to be an issue for the morning commute.

 

Highs return to the 80°s for Tuesday afternoon under a mix of sun and clouds. We could see a blip or two on Titan9 Doppler radar on Tuesday afternoon, but most WAFB neighborhoods will stay through the day and evening.

  

 

 A storm system currently located well to the northwest of Louisiana will drive a cold front into the Southern Plains by Tuesday afternoon, with the front draped through Arkansas and East Texas by Tuesday afternoon and evening. The front should be stretched from NE to SW across portions of Louisiana by Wednesday morning, moving into the WAFB viewing area by Wednesday afternoon, and continuing to head out to the Gulf coastal waters by day’s end.

 

 

 

While the latest projections from the NWS Weather Prediction Center (WPC) call for WAFB area rains on the order of 0.5” to 1.0” for Wednesday, the NWS Storm Prediction Center (SPC) has not issued any “RISK” potential for the lower Mississippi Valley at this time. Remember, that does not exclude the possibility of active to severe storms, but suggests that there is little if any threat for a widespread severe weather event on Wednesday. (Still, we’ll keep an eye on the potential over the next two days.)

 

Unfortunately, the latest guidance suggests that the front will slow and possibly stall near the coast late Wednesday into Thursday, and that could keep our weather modestly unsettled for Thursday and possibly even Friday. Highs both days look to top-out in the 70°s.

 

Into the extended outlook, a storm system is currently projected to develop over the Southern Plains on Friday into Saturday. It could drag another cool front through the state late Saturday or early Sunday but, admittedly, the extended models are a bit mixed as to what to make of this scenario. For the time being, we’ll go with scattered showers for both days and wait for the weekend forecast to come into better focus. Next Monday looks good.