What a classic cold front! Temperatures dropped 20 degrees inside of an hour this afternoon as the front blasted through the area. We hit 83 degrees for a high this afternoon, and today may be the last 80 degree day for the rest of the year…perhaps until February! Temperatures appear to be on track to drop to the mid-upper 30s tonight but a frost and/or freeze is pretty much out of the question as the winds will keep the atmosphere stirred up. Nonetheless, expect wind chills to reach down into the mid-20s by morning so bundle up! Highs tomorrow will reach no higher than the lower 50s with lows tomorrow night getting closer to freezing thanks to diminishing winds and clear skies. Winds will stay quite gusty tonight, at 20-35mph, but should drop to 10-15mph or less by late tomorrow afternoon. It will stay seasonably cool/cold through the weekend into next week with a secondary surge of cool air arriving Sunday. I think our best opportunity for freezing temperatures will come Sunday night into Monday morning and again Monday night into Tuesday morning. At least we are not looking at any kind of pipe-busting cold…yet…lot’s of winter to go!  Â
Check out Jim Bradshaw’s article in The Advertiser today. He interviewed Roger Erickson who is the Warning Coordinating Meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Lake Charles. He concurs with my blog from last week that there may be a slightly better chance of wintry precipitation in this El Nino year. Finally, hurricane season ends today with not even a whimper…thanks to El Nino…hopefully it lasts into next summer.  Jim Bradshaw, who does a great job as our local weather historian, also penned an article regarding the end of the hurricane season. Now this is the time for us to have a “hurricane partyâ€!