80s & Dry thru Thurs., then showery

My forecast today reads a bit like an Old Testament prophecy. No, not in its gravity or certainty. Rather, I see clear themes in a particular order but the exact details and timing are murky.

Through Thursday, our weather will be more like Orlando than Louisiana with sunny skies and almost hot afternoons with highs in the low 80s. A few patches of early morning fog will offer the only murkiness in this part of my forecast..

Then, the first of several clusters of showers and storms moves through from the west on Friday before dying off somewhere to our east. Several other lines or batches will move through this weekend, but the overall system will be slow to move through because of a upper level, blocking ridge over the Eastern Gulf. This makes the exact timing of the rain difficult to predict, though clouds should be abundant.

After next Monday morning, the weather improves with skies clearing out and a bit cooler air in place with lows in the 50s and highs in the low to mid 70s. The long range forecast presents some other clear themes, but again the timing for Thanksgiving and Black Friday are a bit unclear.

The Foreca graphic does a good job in presenting your the big picture. Increasing low temperatures through Thursday mean increasing humidity and patch AM fog. The high temperatures come down into the 70s with the widespread clouds and scattered showers this weekend. Next Monday should offer improving conditions with cooler and dry air moving back in.

Friday’s scattered showers and storms are a preliminary event offering a possible hour or two of rain before the sun pops out again. On the other hand, either Saturday or Sunday or possibly both could be a soggy affair with several batches moving through, but with breaks between the rain. Slow moving systems offer us the hope of getting and an inch or two to ease the drought. My guess is my northern and western most readers in Tangipahoa or Washington Parishes will get the most rain and those of you in Gulfport-Biloxi would get the least. If you have outdoor plans next weekend, look for my updates on Tuesday and Thursday.

Next Monday should clear out a be a bit cooler. The Foreca graphic is based on the European which is a bit more aggressive in moving the cool, dry air in. So if the other models are correct, add five degrees here.

Expect two days of nice, mostly sunny and dry weather on the Tuesday and Wednesday before Thanksgiving. Highs upper 60s to low 70s, lows low to mid 50s. Thanksgiving should start out with partly cloudy skies, with similar temperatures — but there’s an outside chance that we could see a shower by evening with the next system. More likely, this front will hold off until sometime on Black Friday. After that temperatures will be colder with highs Saturday and Sunday, Nov. 29 & 30 running in the 50s or low 60s, lows 35-45.

My long-range guru sees us getting a freeze sometime in December - mainly as spill over from what’s going on to our north. Places like Dallas, Nashville, and Washington DC (and others to their north) should see multiple freeze events with average monthly temperatures well below normal and the chance of snow. He uses ocean temperature patterns, the Madden Julian waves in the upper atmosphere over the tropics, and stratospheric conditions over the North Pole to make his forecasts. Crazy correlations abound but it’s beyond my pay grade.