Rain Tonight, Nice for the Weekend!

By Jay Grymes & Steve Caparotta

It was a bone-chiller of a sunrise for Friday with morning lows in the 20°s for many of us. Baton Rouge’s Metro Airport was still below freezing as of 9AM, but the morning sun finally started warming things up by late morning. Yet even with the welcomed sun, it stayed “coolish” through the day with temperatures struggling to reach the 50°s for some northern WAFB neighborhoods.

Another upper-level disturbance passes by this evening and overnight, with “rain likely” in the forecast between this evening and Saturday’s pre-dawn hours. All of the rain should be long gone by sunrise and the rest of Saturday looks good pretty good. After a morning start in the upper 30°s under mostly cloudy skies for the Red Stick, skies become fair to partly cloudy by Saturday afternoon with highs in the low 60°s. And Sunday looks even better: sunrise temps for the Capital City in the 40°s and partly cloudy skies with highs in the mid to upper 60°s for the afternoon.

Our weather stays somewhat active next week as more disturbances slide by from west to east. There are some differences in the timing of next week’s rainmakers between models. Right now, it looks like the ‘European’ forecast model (ECMWF, 'Euro')) is a bit quicker than the ‘American’ model (GFS) for our first disturbance next week but both suggest rain sometime on Monday.

The ‘Euro’ suggests a dry spell for a good bit of Tuesday before the rains return while the GFS keeps the weather fairly unsettled from late Monday right into Wednesday morning. Suffice it to say that Monday through Wednesday will be rainy days for WAFB communities, with both models indicating that most or all of the rain should be gone by Wednesday afternoon or evening.

Then it’s dry and mild for Thursday and Friday.

Some of the best news may be that we can say “Goodbye!” to the 30°s after Saturday’s morning start, at least for the short-term. (No, we are NOT saying “no more freezes this season” … just none for the next several days!)

Here’s hoping that you get to enjoy the milder temperatures and weekend sunshine!