Nice now; will we pay the price later?

Though maybe a degree or two warmer than I had hoped, the humidity is lower on the Northshore and the skies are brilliant blue. This nice, more like early-mid September weather will continue for the next 8 days, with a three-day exception — all courtesy of an upper air pattern bringing Western heat and Northeastern chill. This means we will have another shot at that “feel good” air with more of those upper 60s for low temperatures, upper 80s for highs on the Northshore from Sunday-Tuesday.

The three-day exception will start Thursday for increased heat and humidity, then late Friday and Saturday when return flow from the Gulf feeds a weak upper air trough. Result: Could see a half inch or an inch of much needed rain from showers and storms late Friday and Saturday. The system will move through from NW to SE and then, it’s back to the nice stuff for early September.

Concerning paying the price later, see “Long Range Ramblings” for a very preliminary concern.

On a personal note, the next newsletter will be on Friday. I’m having Dr. Greg’s Instant 5-lb. weight loss surgery on Thursday, better known as a colonoscopy. Enough said.

The Foreca graphic captures the showers and storms Friday evening, overnight, and into mid-day Saturday. But let’s look at this day-by-day.

Tomorrow (Wednesday) will start out with low humidity on the Northshore and upper 60s to near 70 lows. Southshore will be noticeably warmer and more humid - mid 70s. Highs near 90 with more sunny weather.

Thursday - a few clouds late afternoon and evening especially western sections where some showers make sneak into the Baton Rouge area towards dark, Humidity will increase as winds turn to the south. With temperatures in the 92-95, it will feel like the summer we are used to.

Friday. Mix of sun and clouds with lows only in the mid 70s, but highs that could stay in the upper 80s if we have enough clouds. Scattered showers and thunderstorms should break out in the late afternoon hours along the familiar I-12/I-10 line but die off before moving anywhere. The showers and storms with the upper air disturbance will arrive in the late evening and overnight hours affecting NW sections such as Folsom - Bogalusa first.

Saturday will feature showers and thunderstorms in the morning through mid-day hours, ending from NW to SE. Highs staying in the 80s.

Sunday through Tuesday features partly sunny to sunny weather with highs upper 80s and Northshore lows upper 60s, maybe mid 60s inland locations with lower humidity. Fingers crossed! Southshore will not be so lucky because lake temperatures are still toasty.

Expect that two-week hurricane hiatus to end sometime around Sept. 9-12 with systems to watch in the region where Erin and Fernand traveled. Again, the Madden-Julian wave will start to favor upward motion over the Atlantic about 2-3 weeks from now, which is the physics behind the model. The graphic below shows the chance of a tropical storm forming from Sept. 9-15 based on the ECMWF model.

More concerning is their forecast for the following week (starting Sept. 15) which shows the chance of something forming in the Gulf. Again, that’s a long way off - nothing to concern yourself with now.

On the subject of hurricanes, the Google DeepMind AI model clearly outperformed all the other models during Erin. Its track errors were 100 miles or less for forecast lengths out to 3.5 days. That’s pretty amazing and will help forecasters to more accurately warn people an extra day ahead of time for large storms with significant momentum. However, don’t take this to mean that we should toss out all other models and replace TV’s talking heads with robots. This same AI model forecasts rain every day here in summer - so you have to know when to use it.

Finally - football and fall weather. For LSU playing in the other Death Valley (gorgeous Clemson, SC), weather will not be a factor. Clear skies and light winds with temperatures falling from 77 to 70 during the game. For the few of us who are B10 fans, Texas at Ohio State and Nevada at Penn State will both feature beautiful fall weather with temperatures in the low 70s.

Foreca graphic for Pensacola Beach shows a really nice period of weather except for Saturday! Highs mostly 80s with lows mid 70s means nice camping weather. Plus, I hear that jellyfish are not bad this year.