MONROE, La. – The state of Louisiana is being served up as the creme filling in a two-front atmospheric sandwich this morning. What?!?. It’s going to rain. That’s the forecast in layman’s terms. For those who want to know a little bit more about why it might be raining and when it might be raining and how much it might be raining, you can read on.
The image you see above is from the National Weather Service composite radar site. If you click the link you’ll be taken to the latest radar scan, the picture above is from about 3 AM.
You can see a long sweeping line of showers and thunderstorms moving across east Texas toward Louisiana. Those storms are associated with a cold front. That frontal system will move close to the state over the next several hours and that line of storms associated with it will come along for the ride.That’s one front of our two-front atmospheric sandwich. The first front has already moved through the area. It was a warm front that bubbled up from the Gulf of Mexico during the overnight hours. You may have noticed the wind is a lot more gusty this morning. That’s because of the warm front. It’s also sparked a few showers in the overnight hours but nothing compared to the rain we will likely see later today or tomorrow.
The instability in the atmosphere has prompted the Storm Prediction Center to place a large portion of the state at a marginal risk for severe weather this afternoon and evening. The darker green shaded area is the area of most concern as depicted in the image below.
While it’s not uncommon for cold fronts to move in and move out quickly during the spring months this particular front and the weather associated with it are going to stick around. This will allow for another threat for strong to severe storms on Wednesday. Again, the darker shaded green is where the worst of the weather is anticipated.
