Monday Feb. 24

Marching out of the cold towards a lovely stretch of spring weather here in the New Orleans area. Fantastic parade weather Friday through Monday, though there are still some questions concerning Fat Tuesday.

This Foreca graphic for Slidell looks perfect to me. Rather than give you a daily forecast, let me just mention the important take-aways:

1) Today (Monday) will start out as a dreary repeat of yesterday but the overcast will show some breaks by afternoon allowing for a bit warmer feel.

2) NWS forecast mentions fog for tomorrow morning, but this will NOT be a dense, coastal event - more like a lighter inland fog that shouldn't cause problems.

3) A slight chance of a brief shower mid-day or afternoon on Thursday with a weak cold front. AM lows will cool back into the 40s for Friday and Saturday.

4) Great parade weather Friday through Monday with highs 68-75 and low humidity. Warm enough to enjoy the outdoors, but not work up a sweat. Look at the temperature curve to judge the temperature at parade times. For Southshore locations, add 3 or 4 degrees for morning lows but highs should be similar.

5) A few doubts exist for whether this will continue through Fat Tuesday as high slides eastward. European modeling brings a line of showers in during the evening hours (as indicated by the arrow), but the timing could change since we are a week off.

As shown in this European model forecast….Cooler weather will come back in after that front on Ash Wednesday or maybe that Thursday March 6. By cooler, I mean highs 60s; Lows 40s, and maybe an upper 30 sometime from the 7th through the 12th. Not expecting a freeze here - still can't rule out a frost one of those mornings in rural Northshore or S MS, but probably not in the more densely populated suburban areas or the Southshore.

In the garden, now is a good time to prune off dead tropical vegetation, put down pre-emergent weed killer for the lawn, and plant hardy vegetables like cabbage, cauliflower, brocolli, Brussell sprouts as well as pansies. Still too early for tomatoes — give it about 10 days or two weeks.

All told, a slightly colder than normal March but still one that features plenty of great spring weather. Up north, cold will hang on from the Great Lakes to the Northeast. ALSO....

The US as a whole will end up having the coldest winter (Dec-Feb) in the last 15 years. Climate modeling did not perform well this winter.