Record Lows Likely on Wednesday Morning!

By Jay Grymes & Steve Caparotta

WAFB Storm Team QuickCast:

- record low on the way for Wednesday’s sunrise!
- warming trend through the rest of the work week
- adding very modest daily rain chances for Thursday through Sunday

After last night’s storms, the cold and dry Canadian air mass behind the passing cold front delivered a sunny but windy and cool Tuesday with highs struggling to make the 60°s. For many of us today ‘felt’ cooler than it really was. 

However, the bigger weather story arrives tomorrow morning. We’re posting a forecast low of 36° for the Red Stick, with folks up near and north of the LA/MS state line flirting with a brief, light freeze.

 

The current long-term record low for April 16th for Baton Rouge is 39° -- so it looks like we’ll ‘shatter’ that record since a 4° change in any daily record is very unusual and very noteworthy. But there is more to it than that. The lowest temperature ever for Baton Rouge on or after April 16th is 38° (set on April 18, 1997), which means Wednesday morning’s outlook calls for the coldest morning start ever for this late in the year -- and that’s based on records dating back to April 1893!

Thankfully, this visit by Ol’ Man Winter is a ‘one stop’ deal, with a warm-up kicking in for Wednesday afternoon as afternoon highs are expected to reach the upper 60°s under sunny skies. Then it’s a low in the mid to upper 40°s for Thursday morning with afternoons in the 70°s for Thursday and Friday. And by the weekend, we’re expecting afternoons to reach the 80°s -- much more like what we expect for mid to late April.

Closer inspection of our daily forecasts through Sunday also shows that we’ve got rain chances posted for each day from Thursday through the weekend. But those percentages are on the low side, max’ing out at a mere 30% for Friday. Yesterday we were calling for ‘rain likely’ on Friday, but some of the latest guidance has the rainmaking front we were anticipating essentially fizzling out before its arrival from the west. So yes, hit-n-miss showers for Thursday and Friday, but nothing of real significance the way it looks right now.

As for those 20% rain chances over the weekend? Certainly not enough to worry about, so go ahead and make plans to enjoy the outdoors while the temperatures are still spring-time tolerable.