A blast of Arctic air and the official start of winter arrived today. Winds gusted up to 34 mph behind the front as a result of a tight pressure gradient from the strong area of high pressure near low pressure. The wind will only relax slightly on Monday. There is still a great deal of moisture aloft behind the front and with temperatures dropping like they are, I wouldn’t rule out the possibility of some snow flurries or sleet Sunday night into Monday morning. We’ve had some light rain and if it doesn’t move out quickly, hello snow! Even though we still have clouds and strong wind, temperatures will still dip into the 20s across Northern Acadiana. I think if skies were clear and the winds were calm, we’d get into the lower 20s or even teens Sunday night. But that’s not the case and Monday temperatures will struggle to warm up, only getting into the mid-40s for the high.
We can’t complain too much about the cold because the rest of the country is dealing with a lot worse and blizzard conditions from the upper mid west to New England.
Things change rather quickly Tuesday as a warm front lifts out of the Gulf our way. Winds will pick up again, sustained at about 25 mph with higher gusts. Looking at profiles of the atmosphere I’m a little concerned about Tuesday evening through Wednesday. There is a fair amount of helicity (corkscrew motions within the storm) which can cause storms to rotate and produce strong to damaging winds. Also with the strong low level winds and the warm front to force the air to rise, severe weather and maybe even a tornado threat is possible. We’ll have to keep a close eye on how things pan out early Tuesday.
The rest of the week will be well above normal with temperatures in the mid to upper 70s with a chance of rain everyday. Not the kind of weather I would like for Christmas. And the last minute shoppers will have to deal with more than traffic and lines at the stores.