A strong cool front will usher in temperatures not felt in Acadiana in nearly six months.
Saturday morning low temperatures are expected to plummet into the 55 degree range in Lafayette, which will match that same reading last recorded April 22 earlier this year.
Look for a few lingering light rain showers and/or sprinkles as gusty north to northwest winds kick in across the region this evening with rain chances diminishing after midnight.
Sustained winds will be near 10-18 mph with gusts possible to 30 mph overnight through Saturday morning. It will stay breezy Saturday, but winds will gradually decrease as the day wears on.
Clouds will also linger for a good part of our Saturday keeping temperatures in the 60s most of the day (really making it look and feel like a different season)...but some intervals of sun during the mid-late afternoon should allow most areas to reach near 70 degrees for the daytime high.
Another cool, crisp evening minus the winds is expected Saturday night into Sunday morning with temperatures dropping into the mid-upper 50s.
Sunday should be a pleasant day with partly cloudy skies accompanied by milder temperatures reaching the upper 70s to near 80, in a few spots.
Moving into next week, there appears to be a fairly good chance of scattered showers and thunderstorms Monday and Tuesday with another, weaker front arriving early Wednesday.
High temperatures will climb well back into the 80s early next week while night-time/morning lows return briefly to the lower 70s.
The next Wednesday front's effects will be short-lived with warmer temperatures and rain chances returning for the end of the week and into the following weekend.
Meanwhile in the "semi-tropics", a nor'easter Friday developed enough tropical characteristics with storms blooming near the well-defined center to warrant an upgrade the system to Sub-Tropical Storm Melissa with 60 mph winds.
The system is nearly stationary but is expected mainly to head eastward out to sea but will continue to impact portions of the Northeast and New England.
While Melissa was not deriving all of its energy from ocean heat content, it appears that that process had become part of the storm, thus its hybrid designation.
Per the National Hurricane Center: "Wind gusts to 50 mph are likely to continue over portions of Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard, and Nantucket through the early evening...(and) coastal flooding will continue through the late evening along portions of the U.S. east coast from the mid-Atlantic states to southeastern New England."
