KATC StormTeam 3 Weather BLOG

The frontal trough that enhanced our rain chances during the course of this week has pushed far enough offshore to allow for slightly drier and more stable air…especially aloft.  So the heat and humidity will likely continue but the chance of storms has dropped to about 20% for Saturday and less than 20% for Sunday.  Yes there will be widely scattered storms during the afternoon hours, but fewer folks should get wet…unless something parks right over the cities of Lafayette or New Iberia…which sometimes happens messing up the perception of an accurate forecast!  Highs will be in the lower 90s this weekend while lows reside in the low-mid 70s for Saturday morning and mid-70s for Sunday morning.  Yet another frontal trough will approach next week engendering better rain chances and quite possibly inducing deeper tropical moisture out of the Gulf.  So rain chances will probably go up nicely through mid-next week.  The tropics remain incredibly quiet given the persistence of the last 12 out of 14 seasons…thanks to El Nino and plenty of dry and dusty Saharan air traveling with the tropical impulses so far.  But just because El Nino knocks down the total number of storms, doesn’t mean we will not have a threat later this season.  Gulf of Mexico activity during El Nino years can sometimes be suppressed in numbers but can turn out to be active…remember that Audrey (1957), Betsy (1965) and Andrew (1992) all came during El Nino years…I will be talking about this in our upcoming hurricane special that will air on KATC August 1st…Have a great weekend!  Rob