Dry weather, plenty of sun and a nice northerly breeze returned to Acadiana Wednesday...and with afternoon readings topping out nearing 100°.
It will feel much better tonight as the dry atmosphere across our region will cool nicely with lows in the area dropping into the mid-upper 60s area-wide, but closer to 70° in Lafayette and the coastal parishes.
More of the same is expected for our Thursday and Friday with daytime highs topping out in the upper 90s.
Due to the very dry weather and the ongoing drought, Red Flag Warnings were again posted for portions of Acadiana Thursday by the National Weather Service.
Changes will come by the latter half of the holiday weekend as an upper low sitting over Louisiana Wednesday will get cut-off from an upper trough and eventually drift westward toward Texas.
This feature should then start to tap some Gulf moisture and rain chances should be on the rise Sunday into early next week.
Thereafter, another dry and hot spell is anticipated for the area with daily highs pushing 100° or a little more toward the end of the week and perhaps into the following weekend.
See the KATC 10 Day Forecast for the latest.
In the tropics, Hurricane Idalia made landfall on the Coastal Bend of Florida at daybreak as a Category 4 storm with 130 mph winds.
It became fortunate that the storm was moving at a quick 18 mph pace which limited further intensification and mitigated some of the damage with the storm.
Nonetheless a devastating hit to the Sunshine State and Georgia this afternoon.
Idalia, now a tropical storm, will exit the Coastal Carolinas this evening and eventually fade away in the Atlantic, but that may take close to a week.
Elsewhere, Hurricane Franklin was circling around Bermuda bringing some tropical storm conditions to the island.
A couple of weak lows farther east well into the Atlantic, one being Tropical Depression #11, will not be threats to anyone nor last more than a day or two.
So far, it looks quiet in the Gulf (after Idalia) at least through the second week of September...no promises thereafter and into October.
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