Much Nicer Wednesday!

By Jay Grymes & Steve Caparotta

While most of the Baton Rouge metro area has ‘escaped’ with modest rain totals over the course of the past 24 hours, we’ve seen some 3” to 5” pockets of rain to the east, southeast and south of greater BR.  Be aware that the rains aren’t over just yet -- we could still see some generally-light showers with a rumble or two of thunder to BR’s east and northeast, but the flood threat for most of us has passed, and cooler and drier air will be working into the area through the evening and overnight.

48-hour estimated rainfall ending at 4:25 PM Tuesday.

Here comes the good stuff: skies will be clearing overnight with a Wednesday wake-up in the low to mid 50°s for metro BR.  Wednesday afternoon will be a beauty -- less humid, a tad warmer and sunny skies for Wednesday with highs in the upper 70°s.  Thursday’s another goodie as well, with sun-up temps in the upper 50°s and afternoon highs in the low 80°s under mostly sunny skies.

It’s the Friday through Sunday outlook that may be the real disappointment in our forecast.  Yesterday (Monday) we were thinking that most of the wet weather would arrive late Friday and get out of the way by mid-day Saturday.  As of today, the timing has been pushed back several hours -- and more problematic -- the system looks like it will be much slower to clear the region.  So now we are thinking a mainly-dry afternoon and evening for Friday, but Saturday could be “on the wet side” all day long, with rains even extending into the first part of Sunday before finally clearing out.

We’ll keep a close watch on this outlook in the coming days.  With some luck, the timing and speed of the system may change and leave us with a better weekend forecast.  As of today, however, Saturday’s forecast is not very promising for outdoor fun.

Skies should be clearing Sunday, and next Monday and Tuesday should be “weather winners.”