Bravo Ochsner! Fast Moving Disturbance Brings Downpours

I went into surgery for my pacemaker replacement (can't believe it's been 10+ years!) this morning at 8 AM and was having lunch at Martin's at 12:30 PM.  Special thanks to Dr. Michael Bernard and his whole team at Ochsner's main campus who made this procedure flawless. It was so easy that afterward I felt like...Let's do it again! (just kiddin'!) Bravo Ochsner!  I went in before this morning's storms and returned to a light rain that quickly turned into sunshine.  Looking back on the radar summary and it was easy to see the models were NOT correct.  Yesterday's model run had the rain coming down from the north with a cold front.  Not so, it came in from the WSW  Let's begin at 3 AM and move forward every three hours.

The top view has the line to the north as the models predicted, but what is that coming out to the west over east Texas?  Models didn't have that.    By 6 AM (second graphic) the line to the north stalled while a "bow echo" formed ahead of the upper disturbance now over SW Louisiana.  By 9 AM (3rd view) the bow echo arrived with lots of thunder & lightning quickly shifting to our east by noon (bottom view)  Note how the lightning strikes decreased.  Why?

Clearly, the northern upper feature was robbed of its energy by developing storms over the central Gulf.  NWS described a "Wake Low" over us, but that didn't happen until the initial line of storms moved through.  The models failed to pick up on the upper disturbance over Texas.  As it turns out, the forecast was correct regarding the morning storms.  However, what caused them was not predicted.  The speed of the upper disturbance (50 mph) meant rainfall totals were generally.75-1.00"  A good soaking for our gardens.  It appears we're in for several dry days.

It's hard to find the front near us unless you look at the dew points.  What's left of the frontal boundary should dissipate tonight with only slightly drier air coming for tomorrow.  Morning fog could be an issue?

The GFS is hinting on another weak upper disturbance that could give us some showers on Friday.  Notice no real cold is coming for the last week of March.  Stay tuned!