Look for above average temperatures before a cold front brings fall feeling temperatures back to the Central Gulf Coast this weekend.

THE FORECAST:

Today and Tonight: Thursday will offer up partly sunny skies with highs in the mid 80s and light, southeast winds. Once again, while a shower isn’t impossible, no organized rain is expected. A cold front will come into the region overnight with mostly cloudy skies keeping lows in the mid 60s.

Up Next: The cold front will cross on Friday, moisture starved, but a spotty shower could flare up along the boundary especially during the afternoon hours. Due to a slightly delayed passage, afternoon highs will still make it into the 80s. By the evening, winds will turn northerly and temperatures will tumble through the 60s during the high school football games. Lows will end up in the low 50s by Saturday Morning—heads up LSU and Southern tailgaters! Brilliant fall weather is expected for the weekend with clear skies, highs in the mid to upper 70s and lows in the low 50s. A potential storm system could bring some rain by Election Day, so stay tuned!   

The Tropics: The tropics are quiet and no development is expected this week.

THE SCIENCE:

Forecast Discussion:  A shortwave trough dropping southeastward out of the Upper Midwest has spawned a surface low pressure and associated cold front at its basin and this system is progged to cross the local area on Friday Afternoon. Overnight model updates have slowed the front and this later arrival will now mean a bit more afternoon heat energy will be available to produce a shower and precipitation chances look slightly better, albeit still low. By Friday Evening, the cold front is expected to be in the Northern Gulf of Mexico with surface high pressure building into the Upper Mississippi River Valley. Temperatures should begin to drop pretty quickly after sunset. Prolonged northerly winds will keep cold air advection going through Saturday with high and low temperatures slipping back to average. Some traditional cool spots north of Baton Rouge could see low sin the upper 40s on Saturday and Sunday Mornings. Baroclinicty along the Texas Coast with a mean southwesterly flow aloft is climatologically common and a setup shown by models for early next. Moisture transport into the region should be well underway on Monday leading to an increase in cloud cover. By Tuesday, a trough to the west should help to develop an area of rain in the Lower Mississippi River Valley. This looks to be our next significant chance at picking up rain in the local area—timing may be a little ill, on Election Day. Temperatures should stay at or even below average with the unsettled weather with another front possibly swiping through the area by the end of next week. 

--Josh