South Louisiana was absolutely magical today. To see the joy of our viewers and staff alike was phenomenal. We are still looking out of our windows in disbelief. We want to start this update by thanking our viewers for their submitted videos, pictures, snow total measurements, and for following our full team coverage. We do this for you all and we love to provide you with information and coverage.
We will recap some of the snow fall totals reported by viewers, so these are still unofficial. But after that the big focus after the fun we had today will be the record cold temperatures and wind chills tomorrow. We go from snow fall fun to snow pack/iced hazards.
These are some of the highest totals that have been reported, and we'd expect some higher estimates to come out throughout the afternoon. Models did a great job! Our team worked so hard on scientific analysis to prepare you for this possibly historic snowfall, and we got it! Lafayette is officially now in the 2nd highest snowfall total on record.
Once temperatures drop tonight, and as the thinner snow starts to melt, this is when it changes from winter wonderland fun to somewhat of a frosty nightmare. The snow will condense down and pack down into a frozen mess of ice. And without the sun to come out and warm us up, we are expecting travel conditions and hazards to remain in place through tomorrow, possibly through Thursday afternoon. The snow isn't going anywhere, but it's form will change from fun to frozen.
This will impact temperatures heavily. Acadiana will now basically be an ice box, with arctic air in place above the snow, and strong winds, we will be facing record cold temperatures tomorrow. With the wind chill temperatures are forecasted to be single digits and possibly even sub-zero (below 0). Tomorrow you need to be prepared and to be indoors and have ways planned to stay warm.
Here are temperatures we can expect for tonight:
Here are the forecasted wind chill temperatures, this is what the air will actually feel* like:
Please do not plan on getting on the roads tomorrow if you don't have to.
We cannot stress the danger enough of temperatures this cold. You are at risk of hypothermia and frostbite in as little as 30 minutes in these extreme conditions.
We will be coming to you live tonight at 5 pm, 6 pm, and 10 pm to talk more about today's snow and your future forecast!
As always, thank you to our viewers for trusting us to get you through this absolutely historic snow storm. It will be a day we all remember as a community and was beautifully uniting.
