Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Remember 20 Years Ago?

At my age, I sometimes can't remember what I had for breakfast, however, I clearly remember the Great Freeze of 1989 that began tonight and had temperatures below freezing for over 3 days. Audubon Park reached 12 on the 23rd while MSY hit 11 and Slidell 5 ! The sight of ice on the South Shore of Lake P. stretching out for 1/2 was unbelievable ! So too the sight of FROZEN fish in many of the bayous as thousands of Redfish & Speckled Trout couldn't handle the cold water temps. No such problems tonight. In fact, we have an opposite problem...Spring-like temperatures crashing into a strong cold front may produce a severe weather outbreak late Wed. nite into mid day on Thursday. Stay up with this system as it could also bring more heavy, flooding rainfall...certainly enough to shatter the all time New Orleans monthly record. Santa should have no problem getting thru the downpours and high winds as his new sleigh has all the high tech radars and GPS navigation to get him thru the worse storms. In fact, tonight's VIPIR run has all the storms outa here by 3 PM Thursday making for a dry evening Christmas Eve. Christmas Day turns sunny & colder to put us in the mood for the holidays. I'll be on vacation for the next 2 weeks...will still keep up my blog...so Merry Christmas & Happy New Year Gang !

7 comments:

GREG said...

Bob, Same to you and your family. Be safe.

Anonymous said...

Extended looks like another round for New Year's Eve...will have to watch those temps, too...

Thanks Bob, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and the family, too!

louiswu0 said...

Here are some photos of the freeze (not mine):

http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=new%20orleans%20freeze%201989&w=all

GREG said...

louis

Great photos! Thanks for the link!

Wayne, If I am not mistaken I think there was a decent snowfall on newyears eve sometime in the mid 1960's in N.O. The seats at Tulane Stadium had a few inches of snow on them the morning of the Sugarbowl. How cool would a repeat of that be!!

Anonymous said...

HI MY FRIEND I WANTED TO WISH YOU A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR I WILL BE GLAD TO SEE YOU ON MONDAY, JANUARY 5, 2010 AT 5:00 PM 5:30 PM AND 9:00 PM ON CHANNEL-8 NEWS

ONLYREAL said...

Surface maps exhibit a developing area of Low Pressure over the heart of Texas this evening with a Warm Front extending from the low to off the Louisiana coastline and a strong Cold Front just behind the Low. The development of the surface low is a result of a strong upper-level disturbance. The Surface Low is expected to race Northeastward through Arkansas and into the Ohio River Valley. The attached Cold Front will sweep through our area tomorrow and with it will be the threat for strong to possibly severe thunderstorms.

A large squall line is expected to develop along the cold front later tonight as the Cold Air-mass meets the warm, moist, and unstable spring-like environment. With the squall line the threats will be Heavy Rain, Damaging straight-line winds in access of 70mph, and hail. There will also be an isolated threat for Tornadoes in the discrete Super-cells that develop ahead of the main-squall line. Those individual cells should begin developing after Midnight from west to east. The main squall line should move through the New Orleans Metropolitan Area between 11am and 2pm tomorrow (Christmas Eve). A widespread swath of 1-2 inches of rain should fall across the area; this should shatter the record for the all time wettest month EVER in the New Orleans area.

The Strong Cold front should be through our area by the evening hours on Christmas Eve. Temperatures should fall from around 70F at Noon to the low 50's by 6pm so you may want your jackets if you plan on going out to seeing the family. It will also become very windy shortly after frontal passage with gusts as high as 40mph possible in the evening and overnight hours. Lows will fall into the low-40's on Christmas Eve night across the Southshore, the Northshore parishes will fall into the upper-30's.

Sorry guys, no snow for Christmas Day, however, it will feel like Christmas as highs will barely get out of the 40's. Christmas Day will also be sunny as surface High Pressure moves through the area. It may feel like the 30's on Christmas because of the blustery Northwest winds. Lows on Christmas night will fall into the 30's on both sides of the lake.

Saturday and Sunday will be similar to Christmas Day as a secondary surge of Cold Air advects into the area. You can thank the Cut-Off upper-level low that will be planted over the Mid-West which will keep us under Northwest flow aloft which will keep us cold a little longer.

On Monday a Surface Low will begin to develop in the Gulf of Mexico. This will bring increased cloudiness and eventually a cold and heavy rain on Tuesday and Wednesday next week. There could even be a flooding threat. Hopefully that Gulf Low and its mess is outa here for New Years Eve!

I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

ONLYREAL said...

Everybody in Southeast Louisiana needs to stay on alert today. The environment is favorable for tornadoes. There have been numerous Tornado Warnings with the storms to our west and this a sign of whats to come here later today. Keep alert throughout today until that squall line has passed your home. I know we aren't under the tornado watch yet but I am sure they will extend it over our area by noon. In addition to the increasing tornado threat there is a possibility of straight line damaging winds in access of 70 mph and large hail with any severe thunderstorm that develops today. Watch Fox 8, Your Weather Authority for the latest warnings and expert analysis.

-ONLYREAL