Rain Tonight, Much Nicer Thursday!

By Jay Grymes & Steve Caparotta

For many of you, the morning was much brighter than we had expected. Instead of mostly cloudy skies as we had anticipated, we started out with fair skies and reasonably low humidity. In fact, the sunshine warmed Metro Airport to 81° before noon! But by the lunch hour Mother Nature had caught up to our way of thinking and we were already seeing isolated showers in the viewing area. Rain coverage slowly increased through the afternoon -- by 3:00pm, WAFB had received almost 0.2” of rain.

The cold front we’re awaiting is advancing to the east faster than we had expected yesterday. In fact, the way it looks now, the front should be moving through the Baton Rouge metro area around midnight or so and be moving out of the southeastern-most parishes around sunrise. That means not only a rain-free Thursday morning commute but even the southern and southeastern WAFB communities should be under clear skies before mid-day. 

As of this afternoon, the front is evident on radar as a very thin line of moderate rains over western Louisiana, with a couple of pre-frontal rain bands currently impacting our viewing area as well as parts of central and eastern Acadiana. We’re expecting the main line of rain to remain rather narrow as it passes through our area ... and don’t be surprised if it weakens a bit before arriving in WAFBland later this evening and overnight.

As a result, our thinking remains the same in terms of rain totals and t-storms: most WAFB neighborhoods will see under one-half-inch of rain with this event and the handful of thunderstorms that try to develop this evening will be rather weak and barely produce more than a rumble or two of thunder.

The cooler air mass behind the front will mean Thursday highs in the 60°s for most of us, with lows dropping to near 40° for the Capital City by Friday’s wake-up. Those living north of Baton Rouge can expect Friday morning lows in the 30°s. Friday will be sunny day with Baton Rouge highs near 70°.

The weekend still looks good, too. We’re going with mid to upper 40°s for Baton Rouge on Saturday morning and mostly fair skies with highs in the low 70°s for the afternoon. It gets a little warmer for Sunday, with morning lows in the mid 50°s and afternoon highs in the mid 70°s under partly cloudy skies.

Looks like it stays mild and dry for Monday, Veteran’s Day, and while there’s still some uncertainty about the weather for next Tuesday and Wednesday, at this point we expect both days to remain “mainly dry.”