This Friday/Saturday rain forecast has been one of the tougher nuts to crack in quite some time. Yesterday afternoon, the forecast guidance was suggesting that today’s rains would be scattered at best for today, and mainly a late afternoon and evening occurrence.
Now here we are and by 3:00pm just about everyone has received at least a little rain thanks to a southbound band of showers that raced across the viewing area. In fact, Titan9 Doppler even picked-up a couple of lightning flashes with the rain line as it approached the coast.
Today’s clouds and rains kept temps a little cooler than expected, with highs for many topping out close to 70° or so. But that rain has also appeared to settle down the atmosphere, so we’ll go with just isolated to possible scattered rains for the rest of the afternoon and evening. Although fields will be wet for area high school football, the turf shouldn’t be too sloppy this evening and game-time temps will remain in the 60°s.
Light to moderate rains will return overnight, with the rains continuing into Saturday morning and afternoon. Although the cold front will have passed through the viewing area and is expected to be draped along the southeastern Louisiana coast by sunrise, “overrunning” (clouds and rains on the ‘backside’ of the front) will still be an issue for Saturday plans, including the LSU-Texas A&M game.
And remember, with the front moving through the BR metro area overnight, the warmest hours on Saturday will be during the morning, with Saturday’s official high likely to be recorded near midnight. While pre-dawn temps for Saturday will start out in the 60°s for the ‘Red Stick,’ many of us will be in the 50°s for sun-up and that’s what we expect temperature-wise for LSU’s 2:30pm kick-off. In fact, the thermometer likely shows a slow fall through the afternoon, with readings in the low 50°s by game’s end. Add in an overcast sky and breezy north winds, and you can expect a cool and “dampish” afternoon in Tiger Stadium -- dress for it!
This overrunning set-up for Saturday could even mean occasional drizzle through the afternoon and even into Saturday evening before coming to an end. Clouds should start breaking up early Sunday morning but it will be a very chilly start to the day, with Sunday morning lows in the 30°s for most WAFB communities. Skies should be fair to partly-cloudy by or before Sunday afternoon, but the Canadian air mass in place will keep things cool with highs only in the 50°s.
Monday morning will be even colder -- some viewers could see a brief, light freeze for Monday’s wake-up.
Unfortunately, the dry-out that kicks-in on Sunday will be very short-lived as the next rain-maker approaches from the west. An upper-level low will help to energize a developing surface low over the western Gulf, with the two features making “rain likely” during the latter half of Monday and extending into Tuesday.
A few showers could linger into Wednesday morning, but the rest of the work week looks dry with daytime highs likely to stay in the 50°s through Thursday, at least. In fact, the extended guidance suggests that we could see a second surge of cold air during the week that delivers another light freeze for Thanksgiving morning.
Now that Melissa is gone, all looks quiet over the tropics as we head towards the official end of the Atlantic Hurricane Season!
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