Breezy and much cooler weather is moving into Acadiana with temperatures dropping into the mid-40s by morning. Lingering cloud cover should begin to clear after midnight affording us an opportunity to see the Leonid Meteor Shower. The meteor shower won’t be nearly as spectacular in North America as compared to Asia with best numbers estimated to be no better than 20-30 meteors per hour here. Up to 200-300 per hour are expected in Asia. Best time to look will be during the pre-dawn hours after 400am and before 545am…provided the clouds clear out…and they should. See the graphic for best viewing tips, but I wouldn’t get too excited about what we may see locally. The biggest key is to get away from the city lights.
Lots of sunshine and cool westerly to northwesterly breezes are in the forecast for Tuesday with highs hard-pressed to reach 60 degrees! This is normal for January! Nice and cool conditions will stay with us through Thursday with the main weather issue being the possibility of a light frost toward Wednesday morning. The position of the surface high will be critical on dictating how cool we will get…right now we’re going with upper 30s for a low Wednesday morning…but mid-30s could certainly be possible especially in northern portions of Acadiana, north of the I-10 corridor and into Central Louisiana. On the flip side we could stay in the lower 40s if a light southwest wind develops…this could also lead to a patchy ground fog scenario…more on that tomorrow. So the bottom line is that we are at that time of year where we need to take care of the tender vegetation and cover some of the more susceptible plants that are out in the open. The weather looks great through Thursday with the next weather-maker presenting us with the chance of rain/showers again on Friday. The Friday system should be more robust (with respect to generating precipitation) than the weather system we saw move through Monday. The weekend is looking great with sunny and seasonably cool conditions! Rob