Looking Good for Weekend Parades!

By Jay Grymes & Steve Caparotta

WAFB First Alert Quickcast:

- a brief, light freeze for many on Friday morning

- warming trend and dry through the weekend

We enjoyed more sunshine for this morning’s start than we were expecting, but we also doubt that anyone is complaining about that.  Now we get a three-day run of dry weather coupled with a warming trend that should get many of us into the 70°s by Sunday afternoon.

Cool-and-dry Canadian air has moved into the Gulf Coast region on the heels of last night’s dry cold front.  However, given that skies cleared sooner this morning than we anticipated, we had already reached our forecasted high before lunchtime.  But then the clouds filled back in, slowing the mid-day and afternoon warm-up and keeping most of us in the mid 50°s.  We’ll still feel the effects of the dry continental air mass tonight and early tomorrow with a brief, light freeze for much of the northern half of the WAFB viewing area for Friday morning. 

Sunny skies will take Friday highs into the upper 50°s for most WAFB communities.  Yet be aware that temperatures for Friday evening’s Artemis Parade will drop into the 40°s, so be sure to take the jackets.  

The warming trend really kicks-in for the weekend.  It will be fair skies on Saturday: great news for the more than half-dozen area parades and various Mardi Gras festivities that day.  Saturday’s sun-up low will be ‘cool-ish’ -- in the upper 30°s for the Red Stick -- but it warms up nicely through the morning, reaching the upper 60°s for the afternoon high.  Parades in Clinton, Denham Springs, Walker, boats along the Diversion Canal, among others will benefit from Mother Nature’s cooperation, with it all winding up downtown Saturday evening with the Men of Orion.

Sunday gets even warmer under partly cloudy skies, with a morning low in the upper 40°s to near 50° for the Capital City and an afternoon high in the 70°s -- feeling spring-like for sure!  Okay, a couple of our models are hinting at spotty afternoon showers, but not enough to buy into a “wet” forecast.  The dogs take over North Boulevard -- Mystic Krewe of Mutts – and there’s the family-fun Fireman’s Parade in Addis.  (If you enjoy fire trucks, it’s worth the trip to the West Side!)

Our next front is scheduled for arrival on Monday, but early indications suggest that Monday’s FROPA (“frontal passage”) will not be very eventful.  Yesterday we were suggesting a 20% to 30% rain chance for Monday: now we’ll go “isolated showers” at best.  While it’s shaping up to be a mainly-dry FROPA for Monday, the continental air mass on the heels of Monday’s front will knock area temperatures back down to something closer-to-normal for February.  Certainly not an Arctic blast, but highs back down into the low to mid 60°s instead of the spring-like 70°s.