Today was the hottest day in nearly 9 years! 102 degrees was the official high in New Iberia and Lafayette today smashing the old records of 97 and 99 degrees respectively. In fact, the record of 99 in Lafayette was set back in the dust bowl year of 1930…hopefully we are not heading into that kind of a drought, but we have been running about 10-12 inches below normal rainfall-wise over the last two-three months…and pushing well into moderate drought territory. The key today for finally surpassing and staying above the 100 degree mark has been the northerly surface wind that finally developed and was strong enough to stave off the sea breeze. Most of us hit 100 degrees between 130-230pm this afternoon with the readings above 100 through the entire afternoon; the reading at 600pm was still at 101 degrees in Lafayette and New Iberia! Hopefully you have been tracking my hourly updates at twitter.com…another nice breaking-weather disseminating tool, and don’t forget to subscribe to KATC’s newsfeed too. Heat indices today reached 108-112 area-wide so we have gotten into dangerous territory for outdoor activity. The NWS in Lake Charles issued a heat advisory today and may do so again tomorrow…depending on what our dew points do.
There have been some healthy thunderstorms across the area late this afternoon and evening but activity has been isolated in nature, but there have been some lucky folks especially across St Mary Parish. Unfortunately, the heat will stay with us through the end of the week but with more of a north to northeast flow we should see slightly lower dew points. Rain chances will likely stay near 10% or less through the weekend. Highs tomorrow will approach 100 again and more than likely the upper 90s for Friday. The surface flow should begin to shift out of a more southerly direction as we head into the weekend and next week which should in-turn limit our highs closer to the mid-90s…but upper 90s will persist in Acadiana’s northern parishes. Next week a northwest flow aloft will develop as the upper ridge flattens which should in turn yield a slightly better chance of scattered late afternoon storms by mid-late next week while highs slowly return to the low-mid 90s…we hope…remember, as I have mentioned in previous entries, heat waves and droughts feed off of themselves so breaks in the pattern sometimes don’t materialize as nicely and as timely as the models indicate with these changes becoming just another “mirage”. We will likely have to wait on the tropics for any significant relief from the on-going drought, but at least there should be some afternoon storms next week. Rob