While we keep the cold starts over the holiday weekend, afternoon highs will rise to more comfortable levels. If you have plans on the night of New Year’s Eve, rain shouldn’t be an issue. However, that could change into New Year’s Day. In fact, several disturbances are likely as we head into the new year.

Tonight & Tomorrow: After another cold afternoon, clear skies will set us up for a cold night yet again. We expect lows on Saturday morning to drop into the lower and middle-30s. Some will flirt with the freezing mark. As a result, we still need to protect tender plants and ensure animals have warm shelter. Sunny skies stick around into Saturday. While it will still be chilly, we do begin to trend warmer. We’re forecasting a high temperature in the low-60s in Baton Rouge.

Up Next: We’ll see another cold start on New Year’s Eve with lows in the 30s. However, the afternoon will be rather pleasant. We’re looking at upper-60s to near 70° for high temperatures on New Year’s Eve under mainly sunny skies. As we ring in the new year at midnight, the forecast remains dry. We’ll likely see a few clouds with temperatures near 50°.

As we head into 2024, an active weather pattern overtakes the area. We’ll have a wave of isolated showers passing through starting on New Year’s Day. We won’t see much rain out of these, likely under 0.25” for those able to see rain. The back half of New Year’s Day turns drier, and we’ll remain that way into Tuesday. However, our next disturbance will approach on Wednesday. Rain chances are significantly higher then, and we could see up to 1” of rain across southern Louisiana. After that, we become dry for Thursday and most of Friday. That will be followed by another system late Friday and into next weekend. The Storm Station will be fairly busy for the first week of January!

-- Meteorologist Malcolm Byron

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