Cool Start to May!

By Jay Grymes & Steve Caparotta

WAFB Storm Team QuickCast:

- on the ‘cool’ side for Thursday & Friday
- looking fine for the weekend

How today’s sun-up? Lows in the upper 50°s for many with some mid 50°s to start the day up along the LA/MS state line. And as promised, the cooler-and-less-humid air from the northwest made for a nice afternoon for most of us, although some mid-level clouds and a broken band of light showers did sneak into the area from the southwest during the mid- to late-afternoon hours. Still, the vast majority of us stayed dry with highs topping out in the low to mid 70°s. Not a bad way at all to close out April.

And May starts out pretty sweet too. In fact, many WAFB neighborhoods will awaken to morning lows in the upper 40°s: the kids may need a jacket for the bus stop. If you're wondering, we'll not quite set a new record for May 1 -- the record low is 45° -- but we will get close. And our forecasted high for Thursday will only make the low 70°s for Baton Rouge, roughly 10° below normal. Add in the low humidity and you've got a wonderful spring day ahead.

It's back into the upper 40°s to low 50°s for most of us on Friday morning too. Some of our guidance is hinting at a slight chance for a passing shower or two on Friday, so we'll toss in spotty showers for Friday morning into the afternoon, but like today, most of us stay dry. We’ll expect highs in the mid to upper 70°s under otherwise partly cloudy skies. Even those that get a shower on Friday will see little more than a sprinkle – no problems at all for Friday's 'Live After Five' in downtown BR. 

And the weekend looks just great. It will be a little warmer, with morning minimums in the 50°s and afternoon highs in the low to mid 80°s for both days, but Saturday and Sunday will be 'sunscreen' days under mainly sunny skies. Good stuff to get outdoors!

Our forecast remains dry through the remainder of the 7-day outlook.

In fact, if there is a complaint, it would be the lack of rain over the past few weeks. While April rain totals across the WAFB viewing area are typically in the 3” to 5” range, almost all of that fell during the first half of the month at most sites. While no one wanted monthly to see the severe weather develop that threatened the area earlier this week, we certainly could have used a good widespread rain. 

We’re not approaching a “drought threat” just yet, but you may want to consider watering those spring gardens and re-worked backyard landscaping in the coming days given our dry forecast into next week.