The much advertised arctic airmass will continue to plow through Acadiana Thursday evening bringing sharply colder temperatures along with gusty northwesterly winds that will bring our wind chills down into the single digits by morning.
The National Weather Service (NWS) is maintaining a hard freeze warning for the entire are along with a rare wind chill advisory for the exceptionally low readings anticipated for Acadiana by morning.
The sharply colder air will move in the region during the early evening hours and by midnight most in the area will be nearing the freezing mark or below.
Temperatures will plummet into the upper teens to lower 20s by morning with wind chills likely dropping into the 5-10° range by daybreak thanks to strong and gusty winds.
Northwesterly winds overnight will likely gust to the 30-40 mph so batten down the Christmas decorations and secure trash bins etc.
The sun returns tomorrow but it may not be strong enough to allow our temperatures to above freezing with another hard freeze likely Friday night into Saturday morning.
Meanwhile wind chills during the day Friday will stay mostly in the teens.
And the low temperatures by Saturday morning may be colder than the computer model guidance as some high clouds may not have as much of an impact keeping temperatures up and provided winds die down enough...for now we'll go with lows ranging from the mid-teens to near 20° Saturday morning.
Acadiana should get above freezing but for a few hours Saturday afternoon with readings likely to drop back down into the hard freeze category Saturday night into Sunday morning.
Temperatures could "soar" into the 40s under mostly sunny skies for Christmas Day Sunday, but will likely drop back down into the hard freeze category once again Sunday night into Monday morning.
Please see yesterday's article for the cold weather protection tips.
There should be no significant chance of winter precipitation with this arctic outbreak and travel should be fine, however when cold air gets into the Atchafalaya Basin we always need to monitor for the possibility of freezing "steam fog".
When cold air overruns the much warmer swamp water it can produce a fog effect (called steam fog..."steam" being a misnomer but it looks like steam), that could accrete moisture onto the Basin Bridge which would make for hazardous travel and the potential closing of I-10 there.
If this process were to occur it would be mostly likely be for Saturday night/Sunday morning when winds are expected to be lighter, but the process is variable and is not always guaranteed, but something to monitor through the weekend.
Milder temperatures will return next week with readings by the end of the week reaching the lower 70s, but it also appears the warm-up will come with a pretty good chance of showers and perhaps a few storms into the New Year Weekend.
See the KATC 10 Day forecast for the latest and stay with KATC for further updates.
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