Early AM Showers, then lovely

A weak cold front will give us a good chance of showers in the early morning hours tomorrow. Then, we are in for a lovely stretch of spring weather with cool mornings and low humidity through Tuesday.

You can see the front as a green line of showers (with yellow and red thunderstorms) on this forecast surface map for midnight produced by the HRRR small scale model from the NWS. The line will be sagging SE and should approach most of us who live near I-10 and 12 anywhere from 3:30 to 5 AM. Rain should end on the Northshore by 9 AM, and the Southshore by 11 AM. As you can tell, the line thins out the further west you go, so the better chances for a good thunderstorm will be in the Gulfport-Biloxi area.

A weak high pressure area will drift down from the north bringing in low humidity and clear skies through Tuesday. Then, this NWS forecast map for Tuesday morning shows a return flow from the Gulf. This will bring back some humidity with a chance of showers beginning on Thursday.

The Foreca graphic shows a chance for some decent rainfall with the front tomorrow morning. Again, this will be hit-or-miss though I think most of us will see at least a few tenths. After the front, AM lows in the low 50s on the Northshore will feel nice for the weekend. You can tell the humidity will increase when you see the morning lows creep up from Sunday through Friday.

Foreca has a tendency to bring back the rain chances a day too soon - I can’t see any showers back here until Thursday. Even then, they will probably be confined to Tangipahoa Parish. Next Friday could see more widespread afternoon shower chances, but we’ll give that a close look on Sunday.

For the next five days beyond when the graphic ends, expect highs in the upper 70s to low 80s with lows in the upper 60s to near 70. In short, the weather will feel more like a humid stretch of mid-April than early March. Afternoon showers are possible again Sat. March 7 with maybe more significant thunderstorms late that Saturday and Sunday. We do need the rain, so fingers crossed. Then, after that....dry again.

For gardeners, no frost or freeze in sight. It’s time to prune back winter damage to give the new growth room to start. For those of you who do vegetable gardening, this is the time to plant cabbages, cauliflower, and broccoli - but we’re still a few weeks away from tomatoes.