KATC StormTeam 3 Weather BLOG

The latest pictures today courtesy of NASA’s MODIS website clearly show the oil spill and some of the containment that is occuring at this time.  Unfortunately winds and seas will stay elevated through the entire weekend making operations offshore that much more difficult.  In addition based on NOAA’s latest assessment the slick and crude will encroach upon coastal Plaquemines Parish tonight.  Based on a continuation of surface winds and coastal tides I have put together a threat zone through Monday based on the ongoing forecast. 

I am not however an expert oceanographer nor are these official NOAA projections (as the forecasts officially are only for 24 hours out), but based on current surface winds and currents in the Gulf of Mexico it appears that some oil may travel as far west as Grand Isle by Monday.  

I would not be surprised to see this slick affect the entire Louisiana coastline through the next week to 10 days unless the slick is miraculously contained much sooner than the 2-3 week minimum projection at this point. 

To make matters worse with the gusty south-southeast winds tides will increase to 1-2ft above projected normal lunar tides raising water levels as high as 3ft above normal mean low water.  This would allow the contaminated water to drive deeper into Louisiana’s coastal marshes.   In addition, scattered shower and thunderstorm activity will become more likely at the accident site Friday through Monday…hopefully the fresh water run-off from the storms will help the marsh but it will likely hamper containment activities.  Stay with KATC for additional updates.  Rob 

After looking for a high resolution visible satellite picture from the NASA MODIS website I found that you can clearly see not only the smoke from the grass fires in Vernon Parish this afternoon but if you zoom in closely on the High Resolution Link (warning this is a large file) you will be able to see the oil slick offshore from the platform that exploded last week migrating southeastward in the Central and Southern Gulf of Mexico.  The Louisiana Coast has been fortunate not to be contaminated with this slick as brisk west to northwest winds have dominated across the area since Saturday.  Normal currents in the Gulf migrate westward across the Northern Gulf of Mexico but the predominate winds have been over-riding the natural current forces.  Later this week however, southeasterly winds will return to Acadiana and Louisiana opening the window of opportunity for the slick to migrate toward the Louisiana Coastline.  The slick appears to span much greater than 30 miles as reported earlier today.  This image comes from a NASA polar orbiting satellite which circles the Earth several times a day at roughly 120-150 miles above the earth which allows for much higher resolution images (but fewer pictures) as compared with typical geostationary orbiters that are parked 22,000 miles above the planet.

As for the fires in Vernon Parish, they were initiated by by a burning railroad box car that was filled by wood.  This allowed for three distinct grass fires to ignite leaving a smoke plume to fan southeastward with the prevailing northwest winds Monday afternoon and evening.  The fires were reported under control as of late Monday afternoon

Be sure to check with KATC’s Wind Forecast Maps regularly for the latest on prevailing winds.

I received the news from a Daily Show researcher Monday indicating the field piece shot with my WBRZ co-horts about a month back will not see the light of day.  Bummer for those of us who thought we had the opportunity to make some points from a broadcaster/forecaster standpoint with regard to climate change.   Perhaps our participation in the Comedy Central show was not funny enough, or they didn’t like the message, or something as simple as bad audio or video could all be factors…we’ll probably not ever know exactly why, but that’s they way it goes in the broadcast business and especially when you are not driving the broadcast bus.    I did speak with the Dasily Show researcher that originally set up the piece earlier today and she profusely apologized but the decision was made that it wasn’t the material they were looking for…but she did say that they enjoyed and were informed by what they shot.  Hopefully there was some impact for future stories.

I’ve been interviewed by a number of national media outlets in the past, most of which have never made it on air!  (Gosh maybe it is me?!?)  The Weather Channel was here in Acadiana about a year ago shooting a “Cantore Stories-Life on the Bayou” which turned out to be a very well done show (check you local listings as it has aired several times over the last few months).  They interviewed me for about 20 minutes but only about 10 seconds aired on the actual program.  This is not new to us in the broadcast business as we shoot up to an hour worth of video for every story we do that normally is boiled down to less than a couple of minutes when it aires.   So although the Daily Show won’t allow us local weathercasters to elaborate our position on climate change, a 2-3 minute segment or less wouldn’t do the subject justice anyway.  It was however an opportunity to make some decent points in a national spotlight, and felt honored to be even asked, but guess we’ll have to move on and not wait for the next phone call from any self-touted “fake” news-channels!

The dead zone occurs naturally, but human activity is making it much worse by allowing tributaries to become overfilled with some nutrients while those tributaries lack in other key nutrients. Nitrogen (in saltwater) and phosphorus (in freshwater) are the nutrients that contribute most to algal blooms. A lack of silicon in the water limits the growth of diatoms, a helpful type of algae. So where’s this nutrient pollution coming from? Intensive farming is the practice most commonly linked to dead zones.

Intensive farming, also called intensive agriculture, uses a large investment of capital and some combination of fertilizer, pesticides, fungicides, heavy machinery, irrigation and other modern farming techniques to maximize output from a plot of land. The practice is characterized by higher productivity and requires fewer laborers than extensive agriculture.

Critics accuse intensive-farming practitioners of harming the environment through creating animal waste and fertilizer runoff, using dangerous pesticides, contributing to animal disease and providing inhumane conditions for livestock. Today, intensive farming is both quite pervasive and productive, although the use of fertilizers, chemicals and safe environmental practices can vary drastically depending on the farmers and government regulation.

Some scientists cite the ethanol craze as a contributor to the dead zone. The use of biofuel crops means more corn than ever is being planted in the United States. Corn requires a lot of fertilizer, which is full of nitrogen that seeps into groundwater and ends up in the Mississippi by way of local rivers. Nitrogen levels in the Mississippi River were up 35 percent in May 2007 compared to 2002, and the river’s water levels were down more than 20 percent compared to five years prior, causing a huge influx of algal blooms [Source: The Herald Tribune].

Loss of wetlands has drastically reduced the ability of regional ecosystems to remove nitrogen from local waters. Seven Midwestern states lost 35 million acres of wetlands over the last 200 years, while 50 percent of wetlands are gone from Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi and Arkansas [Source: NOAA].

Despite the dead zone’s gradual expansion, scientists argue that we have the capability to reduce it. Limiting the use of nitrogen-rich fertilizers, implementing water conservation and recycling practices, and preventing sewage leaks and runoff from waste treatment plants should all help to keep nitrogen levels down. In 1998, the U.S. Congress passed the Harmful Algal Bloom and Hypoxia Research and Control Act, which called for examining the research and working to contain harmful algal blooms and hypoxia. Researchers at universities and the NOAA are using modeling techniques to estimate how much of certain compounds need to be removed in order to reduce the dead zone’s size.

Ironically, the dead zone could be positively affected by an active hurricane season. A major contributing factor to dead zones is when water becomes stratified — warm, fresh water settles on top of colder, saltier water. This stratification limits the aeration of deeper waters as algal blooms settle to the bottom and decay. A hurricane could stir up the Gulf waters, dispersing some of the algae and partially replenishing oxygen levels.  While these storms may stir up the dead zone and possibly increase the brown shrimp catch, they will come at a time when Gulf Coast communities are still recovering from the devastation of hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Thanks again to the great blog posts that Rob has been doing with the debate on climate change!  I’m excited to see the Daily Show interview too, so Rob…please make sure you Twitter, Facebook, email, text, call, yell, or smoke signal the air date when you find out.  I’m interested to see the “smackdown”!  I certainly agree with  Rob in his series on Global Warming/Climate Change.  I especially agree that our viewers in the past few years have been asking more than the general “What’s the weather?” question.  Which means either the media hype is driving climatology to the forefront, or that we, the local weather authorities are doing our AMS duty by continually educating our viewers on environmental issues.

Even though Rob and I (because of our schedules) only get a few chances to sit down together and really “go weather geek” every once in a while.   I know that he is always trying to keep up with the latest technology, environmental issues, forecasting techniques, while all the time just trying to let everyone know if it’s going to rain at a festival.  As he speaks or writes in technical terms, you realize just how much he has absorbed in his 1/4 century of weather forecasting (Sorry dude, you’re older than me).  But remember, Rob still likes sports, The Daily Show, Facebook, and all of the other things we do every day.  And, like you and me, he’s watching the forecast to see if he can schedule a “day in the yard” .

So enough of the butt kissing.  Now, I don’t have 25 years of forecasting experience, but from my first little “Radar” job with McDonough County, Illinois civil defense beginning in 1988, I’m starting to realize why the “grays” are showing up as I too approach the quarter century mark.  I read the same journals and have met or listened to the finest weather experts on the planet.  Plus, being in the media for (nearly) 20 years..I’ve gotten a good dose of what most would call…sensationalism.

The number one thing that I and many of the local media meteorologists and weather casters, absolutely, positively, agree with is, “We need more time to study this issue before we come to a definitive conclusion.”  Thanks to the rapid advancement of technology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, information comes easier to all of us.  More importantly, the quality of that information is better or as I like to say, “It’s in HD!”   Rather than taking a scientific approach to explaining recent disasters and applying some kind of theory or blame, I want to take a more realistic view of why it appears that there are more disasters.  I can sum this up in four words.  “THERE ARE MORE PEOPLE!”  The summation is four words, now the 1000 word explanation.  Sorry folks, I don’t get to talk much in my short weather forecasts, so my blogs and KATC.com stories  are usually long.

Lets start with the San Francisco Earthquake in 1906.  This quake wiped out a great American city in a matter of minutes.  The telegraph lines were the only method of rapidly getting the news of the disaster to the rest of the nation and the world.  Most people east of the Rockies didn’t know the earthquake had happened until the next day when they read the headline on their newspaper.  A full 24 hours!  Today, if a disaster happens anywhere in the world, it is transmitted instantaneously via TV, radio, internet, and mobile devices.  Because we can video or take a picture with our mobile phones, we get an instant view of what’s going on in real time!  Plus, because there are more of us on the planet, there are more of us to gather that news and send it to our friends!  So, if 10,000 people can send info from the Haitian earthquake zone, do we think there were 10,000 earthquakes?  Of course not.  Are we having more disasters around the world than we did in 1906?  Probably not, there’s just more of us to see them, more of us to spread the news, and more of us connected around the world at the same time!

Are there more tornadoes?  100 years ago, the Great Plains were sparsely populated, so hundreds of tornadoes might have drifted across the landscape, never being seen by anyone.  Does that mean those tornadoes didn’t happen?  It’s funny to think of a tornado chaser in a horse drawn carriage, with a pencil and paper to draw the tornado with.  Do you think his friends would believe him when he showed them his drawing? 

Are there more hurricanes?  Are they more destructive?  I’ll refer to the above paragraph about the number of hurricanes.  100 years ago, unless you were on a ship, you would never know if there was a hurricane in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.  Remember, not all hurricanes hit land.  Like the tornado, if there was no one to see the hurricane, did it really exist?  Of course it did.  But we’ll never know the actual count from 100 years ago. 

As far as hurricanes being more destructive.  I’ll have to say “YES!”  Now remember, I said “more destructive”, not “more powerful”.    Since there are more people living along coastlines than there were 100 years ago, there are more homes, businesses, and infrastructure in general.  If there is more to destroy, then it is more destructive.  Even tiny little Tropical Storm Allison in 2001 was destructive.  But overall, was it powerful?  No.

Can global warming create more powerful hurricanes?  That’s an, “I don’t know”  Sure, warmer waters can add fuel to the fire, but if global warming is actually taking place, then the atmosphere and the waters would be warming at the same time.  So the ratio would remain about the same.  In weather, it’s the more “opposite” features that create the rough stuff.  Hot air and warm air colliding doesn’t produce a severe weather event like hot air and “cold” air colliding.   In 2005 (click links for maps) we had 28 named storms and four category 5 hurricanes.  In 1933, there were 21 named storms, and zero Cat 5′s.  Strange, though.  When you look at the map for 1933, almost every storm formed west of 55 degrees longitude.  In 2005, we had seven named storms that formed EAST of 55 degrees and never went west of 60.  So, if we subtract those seven storms, we get a total of 21…just like in 1933.  There were no satellites in 1933, so maybe there were more hurricanes, and possibly some of those could have been Cat. Fives.  If nobody was there to see them, then they must not have happened right?  You can’t compare 2005 data to 1933, or 1833, or 833.

Therefore, if there are more people, it doesn’t mean there are more natural disasters world wide.  It just means more people are around to witness these disasters.  And with the technology today, more connected people can send and view these disasters at the same time anywhere on the planet!

Now for my take on the whole Global Warming thing as a whole.  Nothing technical here at all, just my answers and beliefs.  Do I believe that Global Warming exists.  “Yes“.  Do I believe that our actions in the last 100 years have accelerated Global Warming.  “Yes“, but only because since there are more of us, there are more of us to screw things up.  Do I believe Global Warming has “naturally” happened in the past?  “Yes“  Do I believe Global Warming will melt the ice caps and trigger sea level rises?  “Yes“  Do I believe that if the planet warms, and the ice caps melt, and there is more water available for evaporation and that evaporated water becomes clouds, reducing the amount of the sun’s energy to reach the surface of the Earth gradually cooling us back down?  “Yes“   Do I believe that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction?  “Yes“  Do I believe (Natural or Man Made) Global Warming could eventually trigger Global Cooling?  “Yes“ 

Do I think global warming is producing  more weather events and disasters than there were 100 years ago.  “NO”  Do I think global warming will have a significant impact on the number and intensity of tropical systems in the near future?  “Absolutely NO!”  Do I think global warming is going to screw up my 8 day forecast this week?  “Um, No.”

Do I think we should abandon all environmental causes and rape the Earth of all of its natural resourses while dumping all of our waste and polluting the planet with no accountability and no plan to preserve the world that our children and grandchildren will inheret?  Will you believe someone has asked me this question already when I disagreed with their political view?  My answer, “Of course not!”

Do I think any one of the floodwalls in New Orleans could have collapsed (or been sabotaged) on any given sunny Thursday afternoon flooding the city with 450,000 people going about their daily business?  “YES”

Do I think any major city on the planet is threatened by some sort of natural disaster and could be destroyed to a point even worse than a “Katrina”?  “Yep, it’s already happened in China, Haiti, etc…..”

Do I think I can trust someone like Al Gore to accurately predict the weather for April 15th, 3010?  Come on folks, some of you reading this don’t believe Rob or I will get the forecast right this weekend!

StormTeam3 Meteorologist Dave Baker

Good Morning Acadiana-Weekdays 5-7am!

weather@katctv.com

As most of you know I have started on a series of blogs regarding climate change following my interview for the Daily Show with Jon Stewart (I still don’t know the air date but will post it as soon as I do).  They wanted to know more about meteorologists/forecasters position on the subject versus climatologists, setting up for what I can only imagine will be a climatologists vs. meteorologists smackdown!  I figure I better take the time to address as many the issues (and sub-issues) with this subject before I am completely embarrassed on national TV!  

But seriously, this subject has become such a hot burner issue.  It used to be that people always asked me about “how’s the weather?” or “what does the hurricane season look like?”, but invariably I am asked more times than not if “I believe in global warming?”.   How can one explain a position or describe the incredible complexity of the subject and our planetary interactions with a simple yes or no?  I believe most folks are just looking for my feel on whether they should be worried about it or not…they are looking for appropriate “weighting” of the issue.  And that’s where this subject has taken a life of its own. 

But before I digress and launch into a rant on that subject alone, it is very important for me to explain the position of the American Meteorological Society(AMS),  which I am a member of and hold their broadcast Seal of Approval.  The AMS “promotes the development and dissemination of information and education on the atmospheric and related oceanic and hydrologic sciences and the advancement of their professional applications.  Founded in 1919, AMS has a membership of more than 14,000 professionals, students, and weather enthusiasts.  AMS publishes nine atmospheric and related oceanic and hydrologic journals — in print and online — sponsors more than 12 conferences annually, and offers numerous programs and services.”

The AMS published their statement on climate change in February of 2007.  It is an excellent summary on the state of the science as of 2007  and defines where the AMS stands with respect to the subject.  The AMS remains an important research body that helps us ferret out important bullet points on the subject.  But there have been a number of research projects and findings that already date the statement, especially when it comes to tropical activity and hurricanes…

Per the statement,  “A growing body of recent scientific work suggests that hurricanes have become more intense over the last several decades. There is evidence both for and against the existence of a detectable anthropogenic signal in the tropical cyclone climate record to date. Though hurricanes are projected to intensify with further warming of sea surface temperatures, significant uncertainty remains as to how other influences on hurricane strength will change in the future.”

Research by well-regarded climatologists/theorists such as Kerry Emmanuel and others have in the past indicated this.  More recent work by Chris Landsea at the Hurricane Research Division of the National Hurricane Center and others indicate that we may have been observing the  trend of “observing better” in the tropics and that there is very little signal that there has been, or will be any significant change to tropical intensities and frequency of storms in the last century, and potentially in a warmer climate for at least the next 100 years.  

But that’s not the headlines that we see in the media, nor was it the position set forth in the book and movie “An Inconvenient Truth“ where Katrina was made to be the poster child for climate change…a point that I have made in the past and during the Daily Show interview.  I wonder how much momentum Mr. Gore would have if the 2005 hurricane season wasn’t so severe?  It has certainly helped his cause and has awakened an environmental movement…and I’m not saying it’s completely a bad thing, but it is misleading. 

As we roll closer to June 1st I can all but guarantee that you will hear about a number of press releases by groups that will claim that global warming is causing more hurricanes and that they are more severe etc. and then proceed with their specific “forecasts”, or promote their university, hurricane shutters or related products.  With a busier tropical season ahead as compared to last year, beware of the headlines and be ready to read between the lines!  

Incidentally, Chris Landsea resigned from the IPCC in 2005…you can see his letter of resignation by following the link.  Makes for interesting reading and talking points about what went down then and how it still applies today.  Emmanuel et al have also cooled a little on their theories so there is much work to be done in this arena of climate change. 

It’s been three years and I would certainly like to see a more recent and definitive AMS statement updating their position on climate change.  I would also like to see comment about the dissenting opinions that refute some of the IPCC claims,  and for this group, or some researcher, to truly put into sensible context on what global climate change will really mean to all of us. 

We live in a world where we already know hurricanes come every summer,  severe weather events will continue, floods and other weather disasters will happen and lives and property are lost.  Not because of climate change, but because plain old weather happens (could be a bumper sticker)! 

Are we spending the same amount of research time, money and effort on these identifiable and very real threats as we are putting into our future warmer world?   Pure statistics dictate that there will be other disasters like Katrina or worse on the horizon.  Will we adapt as a society, mitigate and legislate appropriately?  I hope…and we need more definitive guidance from entities such as the AMS,  but that might just involve biting the hands that feed them!

Following my blog entry on climate change and the interview/comedy sketch that will air on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart in the coming weeks, I plan to tackle many of the issues that are relevant to the topic.  There has been a lot of scuttle over recent months because of a couple of inaccuracies associated with the subsequent IPCC reports discussing the ramifications of continued warming.  Plus I believe there has been a false pretense that some climatologists (and others) have been telling us that we are actually feeling the ongoing warming trend and that recent severe hurricanes have been the manifestation of the process.  Add a brutal East Coast winter and the perceptions have changed on whether there has been anything going on.  These perceptions are incorrect in my opinion as a meteorologist, forecaster and as a person who has worked in the media for 20+ years as I will explain in future entries.   But to tackle such a broad subject and to set the stage for the sub-chapters of climate change we have to start with what we know. 

Over the last 150 years there has been a definitive anthropogenic (human activity induced) carbon footprint in our global atmosphere.  Global carbon dioxide (CO2) levels from the burning of fossil fuels, deforestation, fires etc are now at levels that are much higher than on record over the last 400,000 years per geological studies including ice core samples taken in the Antarctic.  There is no debate that CO2 is at an unprecedented level in recorded history and that this is directly tied to 19th and 20th century industrialization.  CO2 is also strongly tied to warmer periods of our global climate but how much CO2 will force a warmer globe remains under study.   The question dejour remains how much warming is and will occur by CO2 forcing?  There is much debate between climatologists on this subject ranging from that we may already be in a runaway scenario to only modest warming, with a possible reversing trend factoring water vapor and other chemical and particulate influences.    While there are many studies that prove CO2 increases are strongly interrelated with warming temperatures there hasn’t been definitive proof that indicates that CO2 is the absolute factor in driving the “climate bus”.   There are many who believe other gases such as nitrous oxides, methane and water vapor are and will be more dominant in dictating any climate change.  The debate remains if CO2 does play as the main mechanism for warming how this will ultimately change our atmosphere and when will that happen and how will it manifest in other planetary factors?  And obviously what will this mean to you and I? 

Now per the National Climatic Data Center and by many other studies, there is an argument that we as a globe have been warming and most dramatically in the last 10-20 years.   Some of this warming (about 1 degree fahrenheit over the last 100 years) can certainly be attributed to man-made influences, but recent trends are further complicated by more accurate satellite data and the meshing of this data with surface temperature records.   Interpretation of these data sets and possible urban contamination and “siting” of surface observation locations has led to spirited debate over recent years and will be the subject of a future blog entry. 

Recently I spoke with a climatologist who indicated that given the increasing levels of CO2 in our atmosphere that we are just a few years away from the maximum effects of what CO2 will do with our climate.  Even if we continue to pour more CO2 at increased rates into the atmosphere in the decades ahead the subsequent warming effects that it may be forcing will level off.  It’s been explained to me that it is like putting a yellow filter on a light.  If you put another yellow filter on the light, the properties of the light change very little.   So we definitely have some interesting years ahead and we may have more answers on where this is all going sooner than later.  Until then, I truly believe that we obviously have to become more conscious of being a better steward to our environment and develop new methods for sinking carbon, but there will likely be much more answers, theories,  rhetoric, politicization and monetizing of the subject before then…future topics to be discussed.

With less than 2 months before the official beginning of the Atlantic hurricane season, Colorado State hurricane forecasters Drs. Klotzbach and Gray issued their April 2010 Hurricane Forecast today and it appears to be much busier than last year due to an expected weakening of El Nino and above average sea surface temperatures in the tropical Atlantic.  Their forecast is a resumption of the 20-25 period of enhanced/increased tropical activity as compared with the long-term average.  The group continues to indicate that we remain in a several decade active pattern that started in the mid-1990s. 

The forecast for this year calls for 15 tropical storms (the long term average is 10), 8 hurricanes (the long term average is 6), and 4 major, Category 3 or greater, storms (long term average is 2).  Much of the forecast hinges on whether El Nino will fade for the prime-time part of the season which is August through October.  

“We expect current moderate El Niño conditions to transition to neutral conditions by this year’s hurricane season. The predicted weakening of El Niño conditions combined with a very strong anomalous warming of the tropical Atlantic are the primary reasons why we are increasing our forecast.” according to Dr. Klotzbach who has taken the reigns from Dr Gray in the seasonal hurricane forecasts issued by the group.

If the forecasters are right the risk of a severe, Category 3 or higher storm striking somewhere between the Florida Panhandle to Brownsville will increase from a long-term average of 30% to 44%.  These projections are similar to their forecasts that were issued for the very busy 2004, 2005 and 2008 hurricane seasons.   

Although it remains impossible to pinpoint where the storms are going to strike, based on the data revealed in the report, expect a very active tropical pattern for the latter part of August through the first week of October.

A cool front will approach mid-week allowing for a chance of scattered showers and thunderstorms by Wednesday evening.  It does appear that we will have a better shot at precipitation as compared with the last couple of fizzling fronts and we certainly could use the cleansing rain.  Over the last couple of weeks tree and grass pollen has dominated across the area producing a yellowish/greenish film on just about everything.   A nice round of showers would be beneficial in cleansing the trees and everything else getting some of the pollen to settle down and provide some much need moisture for the ground.  We have been getting quite dry with warmer temperatures and lack of decent rainfall over the last few weeks has made Acadiana quite dusty.  This next front though will have some good convergence along the boundary which should translate into a better chance of getting wet.  In addition, the Storm Prediction Center does have the northwestern parishes of Acadiana in the zone for a slight risk of severe storms.  Although the severe weather dynamics aren’t that convincing and phasing of some parameters appear to be an issue, as with any frontthis time of year we’ll have to keep an eye on things just in case.  Latest model guidance brings best rain chances to the area around 700-900pm Wednesday but with more than 48 hours out from the front at press-time, give or take a few more hours on either side of the forecast.  Preliminary rain total forecast should be in the 1/2″ to one inch range for Wednesday evening.  The good news is that sunny skies and cooler conditions will move into the area for Thursday and Friday with highs suppressed in the lower to mid-70s while overnight lows will give the air conditioner a break…lows Friday and Saturday morning will be in the upper 40s.  Right now the weekend is looking good with fair skies and seasonably comfortable temperatures…once again no excuse for getting into the yards and gardens!

Another weakening front will be monitored tonight for scattered showers and a few thunderstorms but as of press time I am lowering the rain chances for later tonight as all the models are indicating reduced instability ahead of the frontal trough.  A round of showers and a few storms are possible after midnight with the greatest risk of severe weather staying north of Acadiana.  However, the Storm Prediction Center has adjusted the slight risk of severe storms a little farther southward for tonight into Central Louisiana.  So we’ll keep an eye on things just in case…we always have to respect fronts as we get into the warm-weather season, even if they are weakening systems.  Any activity will be over by morning with mostly sunny skies and warmer conditions expected for Saturday and Easter Sunday.  Highs will be in the lower 80s this weekend.  There may be a very slight chance of a passing isolated shower Saturday evening and/or Sunday as the remnant front washes back northward over the weekend, but rain chances should be no higher than 10%.  Have a safe and happy Easter weekend.