Despite a wet winter so far drought still persists across all of Acadiana, a testament to our extreme summer.
The good news, however, is that we are seeing signs of drought conditions improving and the forecast is once again calling for more rain.
Acadiana picked up close to an inch of rain early Wednesday morning, and after a quick break, we'll likely get another inch or two to end the work week.
Getting out of drought safely is a tight needle to thread, you need enough rainfall to replenish the water tables but you need to arrive at the right rate.
Too much, too fast leads to flooding and the water just washes away instead of being soaked into the ground, too little rain and it just evaporates away.
A strong El Nino pattern has provided us with the right kind of rain since El Nino, in the southeast, is typically associated with a wet winter.
So these strong soakings arriving a few days apart are the exact thing we've been needing.
Our next soaking will get going on Friday mid-morning and continue through into the late afternoon providing another 1-2 inches of rain.
Rumbles of thunder will be possible but we're not expecting any severe weather west of the Atchafalaya River, and flooding doesn't seem to be a major concern either.
That being said, during the periods of heaviest rain some localized street flooding will be possible.
Weekend warriors will be pleased to hear that the showers will come to an end Friday evening and it will be quiet, but chilly for the remainder of the weekend.
After that, we'll get another soaking on Monday but this time we'll need to be mindful of potential severe weather.
It's still early to determine exactly the extent of that threat but some of the ingredients necessary for severe weather seem to be coming together.
In the meantime it's a quiet forecast for Thursday with plenty of sunshine through the day.
Temperatures will be off to a frosty start and will eventually crawl into the low 60s.
Clouds aren't expected to arrive until overnight.
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