High heat remains in the forecast for Acadiana for the rest of the week, but a change in the pattern, including a better chance of scattered showers and storms is expected into the weekend.
A very weak frontal trough, that sparked scattered showers and a few storms across the Acadiana area Wednesday, will continue to progress southwestward through Thursday.
This will bring lower rain chances, a breeze from the north-northeast, slightly lower dew points, and lower rain chances to the area Thursday.
A few storms will still be possible Thursday, especially across northwestern sections of Acadiana into Western Louisiana. Rain chances for most of the area Thursday will be down to 10%.
High temperatures Thursday will top out in the mid-90s, but with slightly lower humidity, the heat index may struggle to reach 100°.
Friday should bring much the same with highs in the mid-90s and just a slight chance of a late afternoon/early evening storm rolling in from the east.
Acadiana's next weather-maker will come in the form of a weak upper level disturbance & surface trough currently oriented in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico.
This feature will drift westward this weekend and will be slinging some Gulf tropical moisture toward the region Saturday.
The upper disturbance, combined with an approaching and weakening frontal trough from the north early next week, should lend itself to a wetter pattern this weekend, and most of next week, with fairly good chance of scattered, primarily daytime showers and storms.
See the KATC 10 day forecast for the latest.
And with better rain chances next week, at least our daytime highs will not be not as hot and closer to the mid-upper 80s...still no real cool fronts showing up in the models through the next 10-16 days.
Meanwhile, the tropical remain active in the Central and Eastern Atlantic Basin, but not so much so across the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico.
Tropical storms Palette and Rene should remain Atlantic systems and be moving northward into early next week with no immediate threats to land.
The wave behind those two storms will be emerging off of the African Coast by Friday...this system is expected to develop into a depression or storm not much long after.
The next named system will be "Sally"...followed by "Teddy".
The good news is that the potential Sally system may also make a move toward the North Atlantic but there are no guarantees, especially for the ones to follow into the month of October.
And unforeseen ridges of high pressure may still try to shuttle Paulette and a potential "Sally" on more westward track down the road...something to watch, but not factored in the forecast for now.
It should be noted that the planetary wave feature (also know as Kelvin Waves and/or the Madden-Jullian Oscillation) that dictates favorable or unfavorable conditions for systems to impact the western hemisphere, is expected to remain in an unfavorable phase for any threatening storms to the U.S., Gulf and Western Atlantic over the next couple of weeks.
That forecast feature might be challenged by the ongoing storms and the super-charged nature of the tropics this year...perhaps not, but we'll see.
Eventually we'll become under a more favorable planetary phase for tropical activity again in the Gulf/Southeast U.S. and Caribbean...but if so, it probably would not happen until very late in September and/or early October...time will tell.
We'll keep our fingers crossed and hope the active part of the hurricane season ramps down sooner than later, which is normally in the first week or two of October...no promises here however as tropical activity will likely be cooking during most of the month given the active parameters that have been forecast and observed so far this season.
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