Winter Weather Will Wet All, But Ice Risk Appears Small...

The NWS still has a Winter Weather Advisory for parts of SE LA/MS, but it appears to me our temperatures will stay warm enough so that most of any precipitation falls as rain.  The hours after midnight and through 9 AM would be the times of greatest risk for any icing. 

I noticed on Bruce's graphic saying "freezing" drizzle/rain, but that can only happen IF air temps fall to freezing or below, which I believe is unlikely for most.   Look at where the current freeze line is.  Dallas & Shreveport are still above freezing along with Houston, which tells me it won't be cold enough here (South Shore) unless you live north of I-12.

You can see this morning's rains are pulling into Georgia with the next wave approaching out of Texas.  Note the snow/sleet & ice (blue/purple shades) are well inland from the Texas coast.   I expect that same pattern will continue into LA/MS.  So what's going on?

The upper trough over the eastern states is dragging down the Canadian cold.  The western satellite views show how the southern (sub-tropical) jet stream has become very active spreading in moisture from the Pacific.   But look farther to the north.

The jet stream was plowing into Washington, but now it's lifted into western Canada.  This has brought milder air into SW Canada cutting off the core of the super cold (30-35 below) from coming south.

That's not to say we won't get cold, but this is not record cold.  Do you remember the 15 degrees on this date in 1985?  Now that's cold!   Since the frontal boundary is stalled just south of the Louisiana coast, we aren't likely to see sunshine until Saturday.  So I think our real concerns should not be with the very slim chances for some icy roads, but it should be on how cold on Saturday & Sunday mornings?

The North Shore should expect a moderate to hard (34-28) freeze with a light freeze (29-33) south away from Lake P.   The 7 day has below normal temps continuing with another front Monday PM.

I'll finish with some graphics that show how much colder we are from yesterday and that doesn't include the wind chill from those strong north winds.  Going outside will require full winter weather gear.  I completed protecting my potted plants and even went ahead and installed faucet covers even though I don't think that will be needed for the South Shore.  Bundle up and just know this is NOT "extreme" cold.  It's January in the South and it doen't last very long.   Stay tuned!