Hot, A Few T-Storms Each Day

By Jay Grymes & Steve Caparotta

WAFB First Alert Quickcast:

- forecast calls for ‘more of the same’ for the rest of the work week

- T.S. Bertha accelerating towards the NE and cooler SSTs

- take care in the heat!

All indications are that we are locked into the Gulf Coast summer doldrums: muggy, mainly-dry nights and hot-and-humid afternoons with isolated-to-scattered showers and a few t-storms each day. 

Our forecast for Wednesday through the weekend calls for morning minimums in the low to mid 70°s for metro Baton Rouge with afternoon highs for most WAFB neighborhoods in the low to mid 90°s.  Factor in our Gulf humidity with the mid-afternoon 90°s and we’re calling for peak daily Heat Index readings approaching or even topping the 100° mark. 

Given the expected heat and humidity, most of us would welcome a mid-day to late afternoon shower.  However, as we discussed yesterday, an upper-level ridge to our west will extend its reach just far enough to the east to limit afternoon thundershower development over our viewing area.  So we don’t expect any days with widespread afternoon showers and storms; on the other hand, we don’t anticipate any rain-free days for the viewing area either.

As a result, we’ll carry rain chances at about 30% right into the weekend.  That means the majority of WAFB communities stay dry each day, but over the course of the next five days (Wednesday thru Sunday), we think that most of you will get at least some rain.  (For the trivia minded, even with rain chances set at about 30% each day, basic statistics suggest that every residence has about an 85% chance of getting at least a little rain between now and Sunday.)

And keep in mind that any showers or air mass thunderstorms that do develop will likely be slow-moving systems, so if you happen to be right under the core of one of these rainmakers you could see well over an inch of rain.  This is the classic south Louisiana summer showers set-up with a rainfall bull’s eye over one neighborhood, yet not a drop of rain less than a half-mile away.

In the tropics, T.S. Bertha is moving steadily to the NE and will continue to accelerate as ‘she’ is picked up by the mid-latitude westerlies.  Transition to a non-tropical system will likely occur sometime tomorrow, but the current forecast suggests that the remnant low could remain intact all the way to the British Isles!  Elsewhere in the tropics, all is ‘quiet’ for now.