KATC StormTeam 3 Weather BLOG

Enough said!   Well see a slight warm-up into Saturday with a reinforcing shot of spring air on Sunday.  We might see a few scattered showers on Sunday and then again on Tuesday but rain chances should stay relatively low.  Much of next week looks very nice, but by the end of the week we’ll be asking for rain.

Check out the International Space Station viewing times for Lafayette over the next few days…tonight the station will be moving from the west to southwest roughly 20 degree above the horizon…that’s well above most tree lines.  The station will appear as a fast moving star moving from the right to the left as you look to the west. 

I got a number of queries about the beautiful custom painted hardhat that the Society of Petrophysicists and Well Log Analysts  gave me at their luncheon today…it is crafted by Wayne Bernard out of Morgan City.  You can contact him at t_trophi@bellsouth.net or by phone at 985-385-1064.  I have never been so excited about a hardhat!  It will be displayed proudly in my office!

Rob Perillo

A front this evening will bring a much welcomed change but some un-welcomed storms beforehand. Scattered storms that will be moving through have had a history of producing severe weather. These storms are expected to weaken by the time they reach Acadiana but isolated severe storms are possible. By tomorrow we will be enjoying sunny skies and breezy winds with highs in the upper 70s. Sunny skies will continue as high pressure settles in until another reinforcing shot of cool air moves in late this weekend. Keep it tuned to TV3 for the latest updates on tonight’s possibility of storms.

We’re still on track for a nice late spring cool front!  Scattered storms are a distinct possibility tomorrow as the front approaches.  The lower part of the atmosphere remains quite unstable but aloft there has been a lid keeping thunderstorms from developing.  This lid is a dry stable layer between 5,000 and 10,000ft.  The front should break the cap tomorrow allowing for at least scattered strong to possibly severe storms per the Storm Prediction Center.  The wildcard today (and possibly tomorrow) has been a layer of smoke that emanated from the Florida and Cuban fires.  One of my favorite sites for getting satellite imagery is Colorado State’s RAMSDIS.  Check out the Rapid Scan Operations page too.  You can clearly see the smoke area covering a good part of the Gulf on the visible satellite products.  Smoke is usually a stabilizing factor, so we’ll see if things get de-stabilized tomorrow afternoon.  Tonight at 10pm we’ll have the latest TrueView model runs, so tune in. 

Temperatures behind this front should bring us closer to “normal” in the low-mid 80s during the day, and perhaps below normal in the upper 50s to lower 60s at night.  Moisture will try return for the weekend but another frontal system should move in for early next week keeping the temperatures and humidity in the comfort zone. Storms should return for late afternoon Sunday and/or Monday of next week.

Rob Perillo

More summer-like conditions are anticipated over the next couple of days with high temperatures pushing the 90 degree mark through Wednesday.  Our atmosphere remains quite unstable so I expect scattered afternoon storms tomorrow and Wednesday.  We were unstable, atmospherically speaking, all weekend long, but we managed to miss out on a lot of the storm activity that was possible.  That could change over the next few days, as some storms could be potentially severe per the latest forecasts from the Storm Prediction Center.  Storm should become more numerous either late Wednesday or Wednesday night in response to an approaching front. 

Thursday will be a transition day back to more spring-like conditions with Friday and Saturday looking fantastic and particularly cooler for the evening hours.  The humidity and a few showers/storms could return by late Sunday with a pretty good chance of hefty storms again Monday and Tuesday of next week.

Rob Perillo

As expected another busy day in the Weather Lab with strong to occasionally severe storms across the region.  Better than quarter-size hail fell in northern Lafayette Parish near Carencro, and then again with cells in northwestern and western Acadiana near Eunice and Lake Charles.  Saturday will be another active day with the juiciest atmosphere over the last several days expected tomorrow; this will translate to an excellent chance of a big meso-convective complex over Central and South Louisiana.

So be on the lookout for frequent lightning, hail, strong winds and the possibility of several inches of rain…and have a back-up indoor plan!  Although there may be drier more stable air trying to bank into the region Sunday and Monday, I wouldn’t bet on it.  It looks like this relatively active pattern may continue for more than another week. 

Thanks to everyone that emailed pictures to me today…appreciate all the help we can get to tell the weather story. 

Rob Perillo

Disturbances in the upper atmosphere emanating from a split in the jet stream aloft will continue to dominate our weather pattern over the next few days.  As we alluded to in a previous posting, timing these systems (Texas meso-convective complex outflow boundaries) is nearly impossible, so count on 4 of every 24 hours to be encompassed with thunderstorms, maybe more.  Best chances will be during the daytime hours tomorrow and Saturday with drier more stable air coming in for Sunday…hopefully!

This wet pattern may resume for Monday with a fairly strong signal for another round come Thursday.  Keep it tuned to KATC for the latest on this every changing situation…

Today we had numerous reports of pea to marble size hail and we may see more of the same tomorrow and Saturday.  In the storms, expect plenty of cloud to ground lightning, heavy downpours, and very gusty winds.  We are hatched in the “slight risk” category from the Storm Prediction Center for late tomorrow and again Saturday, mainly due to the instability in the atmosphere expected, with cold air aloft pooling in the atmospheric perturbations.  This is why we had hail today…check out the cool NOAA page that has lots of useful information on severe weather; there is some great stuff for the kids here too!

Rob Perillo

Widely scattered storm popped up this afternoon with more coverage over the northwestern portion of Acadiana than this forecaster was expecting.  On my weathercasts this evening I talked about an outflow boundary, which is in very simple terms, an atmospheric energy wave.  This feature blew into the region from the northwest (Oklahoma) during the day.  The interaction of this energy, with a moist atmosphere, broke the lid on storms, with some storms reaching 55,000 feet late this afternoon!  There was also some small hail with the storms and plenty of cloud to ground lightning.

These outflow boundaries burn meteorologists on rain chances every summer and a very hard to predict how they will react as they travel outward from old storms.  Expect more of the same over the next few days, but I think we’ll see less coverage tomorrow and maybe Thursday too.  Friday into Saturday we’ll be dealing with more outflow boundary action, but this time the jet stream will also be more active and the boundaries will have more energy.  Bottom line: elevated rain chances Friday and Saturday with decreasing rain chances thereafter. 

Kari Hall traveled to Beaumont today to visit with the director of the National Hurricane Center, Max Mayfield.  Mr. Mayfield flies every year on the research P3 Orion Aircraft that is stuffed with tons of electronics.  This plane is primarily used for research rather than the traditional C130’s that are tasked out of Keesler, in Biloxi.  Information derived from the P3 is used to better the models and the forecasts and gets us different data at different levels including remote measuring of surface winds.  The P3 visits about 4 or 5 stops along the Gulf Coast, with this year’s stops in Brownsville, Beaumont and Mobile.  Mr. Mayfield was gracious enough to try to get me a seat on the plane, but I was told I was bumped by higher ups (plus there are only 4 seats on the plane).  The end of this month will be Hurricane Awareness Week and you can count on more reports as we get closer to the season. 

Rob Perillo

It looks like our “sedate” weather pattern will continue over the next several days with very slight rain chances until Friday.  A quick moving disturbance and weak frontal boundary will make a move toward us late Friday into early Saturday with scattered showers and thunderstorms possible during that time-frame.  The weather will improve by late Saturday afternoon and should be nice for Sunday.

 

Too early to tell weather the next system will be a big weather-maker, but the rain chances (currently at 40%) will probably get nudged upward over our successive weathercasts. 

 

The buzz at the station and in the community today was the bountiful rains we received Saturday afternoon and the ensuing flooding and wind damage.  The rains flooded mainly roadways from Lafayette to New Iberia where roughly 3-6” of rain fell, but there were a number of subdivisions that flooded.  The rains fell within a two hour period which will normally cause run-off problems.  Add the antecedent drought conditions and higher run-off rates because the ground has been like concrete, then it is not a surprise that we had flooding issues in some areas.

 

In addition, I observed a 65mph estimated gust at my house Saturday evening ahead of the squall line that moved through.  Then embedded within the storms, there were damaging winds that likely exceeded 100mph in and around the Carencro area based on the video that Marcel Fontenot gathered in her report today.  I spoke with the National Weather Service and they haven’t confirmed whether it was a tornado or not, but if I were guessing I would lean toward a tornado, rather than a “gustnado”.  Check out the latest severe storm report assessment from the NWS.

 

Rob Perillo