Happy Friday evening everyone! It'll be another comfortable evening temperature-wise as lows drop back into the mid and upper 60s across Acadiana.
The entirety of the forecast for the next 5-7 days is heavily dependent on the disturbance out in the southern Gulf of Mexico, so let's get right into it.
The steering currents for the storm, at least in the near term, is pretty straightforward.
A trough of low pressure in Texas currently will initially guide the storm to the north.
However as we head into the weekend, a ridge of high pressure will start to build into the central U.S. from the west essentially creating a "block" prohibiting the storm to move farther north.
Thus, we are expecting the storm to make that bend to the west toward Texas late in the weekend and into early net week.
The question marks start flying into next week as the track forecast becomes very uncertain.
We will be dealing with another slow mover of a storm which makes the forecast 5+ days out extremely difficult.
Some guidance take the system directly into Texas and dissipate it by early next week.
Others keep it barely offshore, meandering around for a couple of days before potentially making a run to the north/northeast by mid-next week.
This scenario would obviously make for a wetter pattern for us, but is certainly not a set in stone forecast.
We will continue to keep a close eye on it, but nothing we need to be overly worried about at least at this time.
Main threats to us as of now will be tides coming up along the coast to around 1-3 feet as a persistent easterly flow will be in place across the area this weekend.
Tropical rain bands could impact the area as early as Sunday and remain in the forecast through at least parts of next week, but again, rain chances into next week will be highly dependent on the track of Beta.
If the track stays farther south and west into Texas, rain chances can certainly come down and of course vise versa.
We will continue to monitor the progression of the storm closely in the days ahead.
Heavy rain will be the main concern with this system, but where exactly those high rainfall totals will set up, is still somewhat hazy at this time.
You'll want to be weather aware this weekend and into next week for potential changes in the forecast. Y'all have a great weekend!
Elsewhere in the tropics: Wilfred and Alpha (yes, we have run out of names on the list and have turned to the Greek alphabet to finish off the season) formed on Friday, but both of these storms will present no real issues and especially not to us here in Acadiana.
Teddy continues to be an impressive hurricane out in the Atlantic and may even brush by Bermuda before making a run for the Canadian coastline with time. No threat to Acadiana.
