Hoping for Sunshine on Tuesday

By Jay Grymes & Steve Caparotta

WAFB First Alert Quickcast:

- stays cool through the rest of 2014 with a welcomed dry-out over the next two days
- chilly but dry for New Year’s Eve festivities
- rain likely for Friday and Saturday 

We’ve had a little bit of everything over the last few days, dominated by “wet.” Since the weekend, most of the WAFB area has seen from 0.5” to 2.0” of rain, with some pockets well above 3.0” -- thankfully, however, the feared deluges and subsequent flood threats failed to materialize. It was awfully muggy for the first half of the weekend but a cold front finally brought a return of winter-like temps.

Now that the front has moved through, 50°s have replaced the 70°s, although we still haven’t been able to get out from under the clouds. So today was a damp, occasionally-drizzly, rather disagreeable day. But there is hope: sun returns to the forecast!

Although the rain is long gone, it’s looking like the clouds will linger through the night and into Tuesday morning. But clearing should be underway by the afternoon, if not sooner, giving us some afternoon sunshine and fair skies by Tuesday evening. Tuesday morning clouds will help insulate us a bit, keeping overnight and early morning temperatures in the 40°s, while the afternoon sunshine will help offset some of the chill of the post-frontal air mass, with Tuesday highs expected in the upper 50°s to around 60° or so.

That same dry continental air mass and fair skies for Tuesday night into Wednesday morning will allow temps to drop into the 30°s for Wednesday morning -- possibly flirting with a freeze along and north of the LA/MS state line. Wednesday afternoon highs should reach the mid 50°s for the Red Stick under fair skies. But clouds will begin a steady return by Wednesday evening -- that’s not necessarily a bad thing since the clouds will slow the evening temperature fall. We’ll stay dry Wednesday evening into early Thursday -- area temperatures around midnight will run in the upper 30°s to low 40°s. For Red Stick Revelry in the heart of BR’s downtown, it may even be a degree or two warmer: certainly not mild, but not bitterly cold -- and more importantly, dry!

It’s down to the low to mid 30°s for many by Thursday’s sunrise, with highs in the 50°s again for Thursday. We’ll also start to slowly re-introduce rain chances through the latter half of the day. By Friday, it’s wet as a low in the western Gulf drifts northward, bringing “overrunning” rains and a warm front into coastal Louisiana. Our current guidance suggests that the Gulf low “tightens up” along the upper Texas Coast, possibly near Sabine Pass, and then marches east along the Louisiana coast on Saturday, making for another wet day before the frontal complex shifts to the east. The rains end on Sunday, with another run of cool days to follow.