Isolated Showers for the Weekend

By Jay Grymes & Steve Caparotta

WAFB Storm Team QuickCast:

- patchy fog and isolated mainly-light showers for early Friday AM
- partial clearing for Friday afternoon, looking good for Saturday
- spotty PM showers for Sunday
- stormy weather late Monday/early Tuesday

We opened the day with widespread fog, including some pockets of locally-dense fog in a number of places. In fact, areas on the west side of the Atchafalaya Basin were under a Dense Fog Advisory earlier this morning. But other than the morning fog, today turned out to be another nice spring day under partly cloudy skies with highs again climbing into the mid 80°s for most WAFB neighborhoods.

The Gulf air mass currently extending over our region has dew points in the upper 50°s to low 60°s. They are likely to stay there through Friday morning, so be ready for another round of fog for tomorrow morning with sunrise temperatures in the low to mid 60°s for metro Baton Rouge. Our Friday forecast still calls for the passage of a trailing cool front through Louisiana during the day, but as we mentioned a number of times this week, any active weather associated with the front will stay to our north. We'll toss in a slight chance of rain for Friday morning -- at 20% or less. Skies are expected to be mainly-fair by the late afternoon and evening, so it's a "thumbs-up forecast" for Friday's Live After Five.

Our Saturday forecast has improved a bit. Although afternoon temperatures won't show much of a change, the air mass behind Friday's front should be slightly "drier" (less humid), and that takes just about any chance of rain out of the forecast for the day. Fog shouldn't be any kind of a problem for Saturday morning either as we start the day in the upper 50°s to low 60°s. Saturday afternoon highs will return to the mid 80°s under fair to partly cloudy skies. But the “drier” air doesn’t last long: we're keeping a 20% chance of rain in the Sunday forecast as low-level Gulf humidity slowly creeps back into the area with southeast and southerly breezes. 

You have to admit, it's been an agreeable week and weekend for those enjoying Spring Break.

Our forecast into next week still has a more potent front passing through our area early Tuesday, bringing not only rain but a threat of active-to-severe weather. Even this far ahead of time the NWS Storm Prediction Center is noting a severe weather threat for the lower Mississippi River Valley from late Monday into early Tuesday, with the potential for strong tornadoes developing ahead of and along the advancing cold front. 

It's still a little too early to become overly-concerned about a severe weather threat for early next week, and we've got several days to work out the particulars -- just keep it in mind. Of course, the WAFB Storm Team will keep a close eye on developments through the weekend -- follow us on-air and on social media.