Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Turning Wet for Halloween Evening

By Jay Grymes & Steve Caparotta

We stayed under the clouds for the better part of the day, although there were times when the cloud-deck thinned enough to let is some decent amounts of sunshine. We’ll remain under the clouds through the most of the evening and overnight, with those cloud layers thickening as we head towards Thursday morning.

In fact, a few might see a sprinkle or two for Thursday morning’s commute, but it should be a mainly-dry morning drive for most with sunrise temps in the upper 60°s -- on the “warm” side of normal for late October.

The cold front we’ve been talking about is still on track to arrive late Thursday evening, but it’s the pre-frontal rains that are going to be a problem for the Trick-or-Treaters. It’s just not looking good at all for late Thursday afternoon and especially into the neighborhood Halloween hours (generally around 5-8pm for most local communities). We’ve got isolated to possibly scattered showers arriving by lunchtime with rain chances steadily rising through the afternoon and into the evening.



Yesterday we mentioned how our in-house RPM model was bringing the rains into our viewing area a bit later than two other reliable models -- the GFS (American) and ECMWF (European). The RPM was offering us some hope that the rains might hold off long enough to allow the door-to-door Gremlins a chance to collect their chocolate booty.

That was yesterday. Today, our RPM has sped-up a bit … and is now more in line with the other two reliable models, both of which paint a “wet” picture for the Baton Rouge metro area by 5-6pm, if not sooner. Communities well to the south and east of Baton Rouge will see the rains arrive later in the evening, so some may be able to get in their outdoor fun before the weather gets too active.



Also note that the NWS Storm Prediction Center has expanded the amount of WAFB area included in their “Slight Risk” for Thursday into early Friday. We still don’t anticipate widespread active or stormy weather, but a couple of t-storms could attain low-end severe thresholds, most likely in the form of high winds.


The good news is that the rains will move out quickly - - while we may still see some Friday mid-to-late morning rains closer to the coast, we have rains ending in the Baton Rouge metro area very early Friday morning -- before the morning commute. Look for sunshine by Friday afternoon as cooler and less humid air takes hold.

Rain totals are likely to range from around 0.5” to 1.5” for most, with some pockets of 2”+ where the stronger storms pass. Since we’ve been reasonably dry over the past couple of weeks, these projected rain totals won’t cause any serious problems in the area.



The weekend will be nearly perfect -- sunshine for both Saturday and Sunday! And looking farther ahead, we keep the weather dry for Monday, with modest rain chances on Tuesday and our next cold front currently on schedule to arrive Wednesday.

And nothing bubbling in the tropics!

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