Several rain chances Thursday-Sunday

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Prospects for a really good weekend went down the dumper, as Bob Breck used to say. A slow moving cold front will come through Thursday AM and stall on the coast south of New Orleans. That means showers and storms are possible in fits and spurts from Thursday morning through Sunday evening when, would you believe it, another cold front should make it through clearing us out for Monday and Tuesday. I feel like a meteorological DJ when I say “the fronts just keep ‘comin and ‘comin”.

The sequence of events is pretty clear, but the translation of what it really means for Friday and Saturday is murky. Presently, strong southerly winds are bringing back the moisture and tonight won’t feel as crisp.

Tomorrow, while we’re well into the mid 80s with partly sunny skies, a cold front will stretch from Northern Mississippi back into the Shreveport area. That will set off a line of thunderstorms that will move in our direction, but will peter out in the Bogalusa area near the state line as the sun sets. Another batch of showers with a few embedded storms will develop Thursday night at the advancing front and cross the Northshore in the early morning hours (see ECMWF graphic below for 3 AM Thursday where dotted blue line shows the cold front). By late-morning, showers with the front will clear the Southshore but stall at the coast.

Temperatures will be slightly cooler on Thursday and Friday before the warm air tries to advance northward again, producing more showers and storms Friday. The challenge is how much rain these will produce and how long a rain event. This has the potential to dump some heavy rains, but not all models agree. Saturday’s shower and storms look scattered but where and when, I cannot say; Sunday’s storms should be more widespread in the afternoon and evening hours before and with the next front.

The Foreca graphic agrees with the European model which seems like it a has more of physical basis than the American model which is as featureless as most modern art. One thing not shown - tomorrow afternoon, there’s a 20% chance of scattered light afternoon showers in inland areas. Shower and storm chances are probably 50-50 tomorrow night in the Folsom-Bogalusa area with the first batch of storms which should die before reaching I-12/I-10. Thursdays rain chances are a bit earlier than what is shown on the graphic — about 3 to 8 AM.

Otherwise, I have no problems with the graphic. Note the lows in the 50s for next Tuesday and Wednesday on the Northshore. The cooler air will only last two days, but in May we’ll take it.

Wed. and Thursday May 13 and 14 should feature partly to mostly sunny skies with humidity increasing again late Wednesday. Northshore lows mid-upper 60s, highs mid 80s. Next rain chance beyond the Foreca graphic with another cold front Friday May 15 and/or Saturday May 16. Again, cool air will last for a day or two after the front, then warm up. But that…..should be it for the cold fronts. Expect 10 days to two weeks of dry, increasingly hot weather for the last half of the month.

Don’t even think of it unless you’re getting the condo ready for visitors or want to camp out at the aviation museum. Conditions are too windy to do much of anything on the beach today and tomorrow. A similarly showery/stormy weekend is also forecast for the beach.