Rain, A Few Storms Late Tonight

By Jay Grymes & Steve Caparotta

We’ve spent the better part of the day under the clouds and that help to limit the daytime warm-up. Thankfully, however, it stayed dry through the afternoon and for the evening drive -- and with the traffic already in a bad state even for a Friday, rain would have made the evening commute a real mess!

A look at Titan9 regional radar shows that the rain is already moving through the northern half of the state and we have seen a few light sprinkles to the south and southeast of the Baton Rouge metro area. The way it looks, the rain holds off for most of us until late tonight, with many of WAFB viewers staying well past midnight.

But the rain is coming: we’re going with “rain likely” through the morning hours on Saturday with the rains tapering off by or before mid-day. Saturday’s rains and clouds are courtesy of a cold front that should sweep through the viewing area during the early morning, but we’ll still have some ‘backside’ (post-frontal) clouds and a few showers to deal with. In addition, a weaker secondary cold front will move through the region later in the day. Temps on Saturday should climb into the mid to upper 60°s by the early afternoon, then may start an earlier-than-normal slow fall during the mid-afternoon.

While we can’t entirely rule out a late sprinkle or two, it should be mainly-dry for Saturday’s Cortana Kiwanis Christmas Parade -- the parade kicks-off at 5:30pm and cruises through downtown BR under cloudy skies. Temps during the parade should slowly fall through the 50°s as the parade rolls.

It's a similar forecast for Southeastern football's kickoff against New Hampshire at 6 p.m. Look for clouds and somewhat cooler temps, but only an isolated shower at most.

The clouds linger into Sunday morning before clearing out during by mid-day, leaving us with clear skies for Sunday afternoon and evening. But the air mass will be noticeably cooler, with Sunday’s highs only reaching the low to mid 50°s.

A steady warming trend sets in during the mid-week, but that’s after some cold starts for Monday and Tuesday -- communities along and north of the I-10/12 corridor should be ready for light, brief freezes to start both days. The weather stays dry through Thursday with afternoon highs up around 70° for Thursday as well. Unfortunately, the extended outlook not only calls for scattered rains on Friday but suggests rain in the area for the weekend too.