Hope you had a wonderful Christmas holiday.
For those that have to head back to work on Wednesday you might have to deal with some patchy to dense fog, especially down along the coast, which could reduce visibility down below one mile.
After the fog mixes out it will still be rather dreary with lots of mid and high level clouds around but warm as highs will climb to near 70 again.
Here is a look at the latest hour-by-hour temperatures.
The reason for the warmer temperatures even with all the clouds is because winds will be picking up out of the ESE at 10-20 mph pushing warm and humid air off the Gulf and over Acadiana.
Eventually that warm and humid air could squeeze out a few scattered showers during the evening but for the most part we should be dry Wednesday.
Thursday things change as we will be watching a strong cold front marching towards Acadiana.
Right now models keep most of Acadiana dry for the morning commute but by lunchtime the front will be working into western portions of Acadiana producing a line of strong to possibility severe showers and storms.
This line will then reach Lafayette during the early afternoon between 12-4pm.
Here is a look at the latest Futurecast with the timing of these storms.
According to the Storm Prediction Center most of Acadiana is under a marginal risk(5%) that a few storms could be on the severe side with damaging winds up to 60 mph as the main threat by a brief spin-up tornado can not be ruled, especially from Beauregard parish to Rapides where they are under a slight risk(15%).
The tricky part in the forecast has to deal with how fast or rather slow this front moves off to the east.
Because the main area of Low pressure with this front will be way up to the north by the Great Lakes the front will begin to lose the forcing to push the front off to the east as it reaches Acadiana
Thus, from Lafayette on eastward scattered showers could continue through much of the evening on Thursday before finally starting to clear out by Friday.
If that is the case rainfall amounts could add up and cause flooding issues for portions of Acadiana.
Here is a look a rainfall projections from the RPM model.
You can see that if these showers linger and are slow to move out of the area some spots could get 3-6 inches of rain.
But that is just one model and if you look at the other models like the GFS and Euro they are a little quicker with the front clearing Acadiana and thus rainfall amounts will only be about 2-4 inches for everyone, which with the relatively dry conditions that should not cause too many issues outside ponding in the typical slow draining spots.
It does look like everyone will get a break in the rain on Friday and we could even see some sunshine to help dry things up before more showers return on Saturday as the cold front will change over to a stationary front and back up over Louisiana.
The good news with Saturday’s rain is it should stay on the lighter side and not cause any real flooding issues.
A few showers could continue on Sunday but I do think that most of the day will be dry but cloudy with temperatures starting to fall with highs only in the mid 50s.
Looking ahead to New Years Eve the models are indicating that another low pressure system could work across Acadiana producing another round of showers but it just might dry up in time as you might be heading out for your News Years festivities.
We will have more on this as it gets closer.
