We sure have had some great weather over the last couple of days! Yesterday, we had high temps mainly in the 70s with lots of dry air and sunshine. Today we’ll have similar weather. We have high pressure to our north with a stationary front far to our south.
There is a weak cool front just to our north. This will barely skim our region. It will pretty much just reinforce the mild/dry air that is already in place. So we’ll have lots of sunshine again today and for the next few days. There won’t be much change in the weather.
One thing that will gradually change will be the humidity. It will go up a little bit on Thursday. Then it will increase even more Friday into Saturday.
Fortunately and unfortunately, we only have one day now when it looks like we’ll have any rain. I have a slight chance on Friday and that is it for the next 7 days. That’s great news for the big football games this weekend. However, our lawns and trees are really starting to get stressed due to the lack of water. Some of them are already changing color in spots and dropping some leaves. I believe this is more from the lack of water than the recent cool temps, but that is also a factor.
Meanwhile, we are tracking tropical storm Francine in the western Gulf of Mexico.
It was offshore this morning, but some of the rain bands had been moving over land. These were producing some wind gusts already up to 30mph. Surface winds around the storm were over 60mph, but this was still below hurricane strength. The storm had some dry air wrap into it last night. This halted the strengthening for a bit. However, it is forecast to strengthen again as it moves north then northeast today into tonight.
The storm is forecast to become a category 1 hurricane within the next 18 hours. Then it is expected to become a category 2 before landfall late tomorrow.
They are going to see strong damaging winds along the coast and heavy rainfall. They could get 4-8 inches of rain in a relatively short period of time. That could cause flooding in itself. They are also looking at a sizable storm surge.
It could run up to 10 ft southwest of Morgan City.
After landfall the system should weaken quickly. It will get down to a tropical storm and then a depression in a relatively short period of time.
It will then become a rainmaker for the Tennessee River Valley.
I mentioned that they really need the rain in that region. So the later part of the forecast could be a good thing for that area.
There are 2 other features that we are watching in the central Atlantic. 2 tropical disturbances there have a medium to high chance of formation.
The odds are better that they would stay out to sea if they did form. However, that is not a guarantee. So stay tuned for updates.
Meteorologist: Jeremy Wheeler
