Freeze Warnings North Shore & Mississippi Coast

Today's bright sunshine allowed us to warm to near 60, but those clear skies coupled with light winds will allow over night lows to dip to near freezing across the North Shore and Mississippi Gulf coast.  This will not be a hard freeze, but there could be widespread frost, even away from Lake Pontchartrain on the South Shore.  Lake water temps are still 55-60 so that should protect most of us south.

After a chilly start, warmer air will allow us to soar back into the 60s tomorrow & 70+ for Thursday & Friday into the weekend.  With warmer air comes the potential for stronger storms and heavy rainfall.  Right now, SPC keeps the severe threat west of us on Thursday/Friday with the upper energy pulling away to the north.  Models have be trending downward on the heavy rainfall shifting the heaviest now to the northern Florida coast over the next 5 days.  Ch. 8 has a First Alert for the Thursday through Friday time period as the cold front is likely to stall.

Here's the the reason for why our weather pattern will flip from dry & chilly to warm & wet.  A Pacific storm will bring energy combining with Gulf moisture to give us the potential for 2-3" of rain.

Low dew points (20s & 30s) cover all of the Gulf South and it will take some time for the return flow of moisture to deepen to increase rain chances.  Here's the model timing Nicondra used at noon.

Friday morning & Saturday look to be the wettest periods.  A lot depends on where the front decides to stall out.

Don't get use to the sunshine as it appears we're heading back into many cloudy, dreary days ahead.  Finally...

I love to point out things/features on satellite views.  it's a lost art.  The top two pictures show the snow cover across Iowa into Illinois & Wisconsin.  How do you know it's snow & not clouds?  You can see how the many rivers stand out.  The bottom two views show the extensive early season snow cover out West.  When you animate the clouds & they don't move, you know it's snow & not clouds. Ski Resorts are open for business!   Just something to talk about on a quiet day.  Stay tuned!