There is still a chance of severe weather this afternoon across Acadiana, but it’s not a good chance. The image above is a look at a sounding from Lake Charles this morning. Weather balloons send us back this data. You can click on it to enlarge it. One thing that stood out to me after looking at this sounding is the amount of dry air above 8,000 feet or so.  On the image above, the green line represents moisture while the red line represents the temperature. Notice how far apart the red and greens lines are from each other as we head up into the atmosphere; that is an indication of very dry air. This means we will probably just see scattered showers and storms this afternoon, but with that dry air in place at those levels, we may see damaging winds and large hail with any strong storm that develops. The low level wind shear is not real impressive, so the tornado threat is going to be low. An upper level disturbance will push through this afternoon, popping up the showers and storms. The sun is trying to peak through the clouds, too, and that will destabilize the atmosphere a little more, which will help storms to form.  Most of the storms will push out this evening, and the weather  will be nice for the next few days.

Some areas of Acadiana woke up this morning to thunderstorms with  hail. The picture above was taken this morning in Youngsville. We had numerous hail reports this morning, and most of the hail reported was about  the size of marbles. This type of weather is a sure sign that spring is right around the corner; with temperatures starting out in the low 60s this morning, it sure did feel like spring. We can expect more storms today, and we have a better chance of severe storms tomorrow, but I’m not convinced we will see much severe weather. The wind energy in the atmosphere will be strong, but there won’t be much instability, and most of the upper level energy will pass just north of us. Once we get past tomorrow, the really nice weather will return for Thursday, and the nice weather will stay with us through early next week. Highs Thursday will be in the mid 70s, but cooler weather will arrive Friday as highs will be in the mid 60s. Lows will cool down to the mid 40s late this week. We’re not expecting any frost for the next week, but that doesn’t mean we won’t see another frost before the warm season moves into Acadiana.

After a gorgeous weekend, changes will be on the way into the workweek. We’ll see scattered showers and isolated thunderstorms into the next few days as some upper level energy moves over the area. The clouds and rain will stick around tomorrow, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday morning with cooler air sinking into Acadiana afterward. We’ll see highs into the mid-70s by Thursday with those scattered showers. Temperatures during the afternoon on Friday only reach the upper-60s with sunshine back for the weekend. Keep the umbrella handy this week.

I had a chance Tuesday afternoon to speak at Our Mother of Peace Elementary in Church Point. I spoke to the 5th graders there and I had a good time in Church Point. I have to say that 4th and 5th graders are my favorite grades to speak to about weather. The students were very knowledgeable about weather and they had lots of good questions to ask. I spent about 45 minutes to an hour with them; they were well-behaved and friendly. I would like to thank Kristen Olivier for inviting me up to Church Point. I spoke to her students last year, too, about this time of year. I remember it was on Friday the 13th. My next stop will be in Mamou next Thursday. I will be speaking to 3rd and 4th graders at Mamou Elementary.

We deserve some nice, dry weather after all the rain we have seen over the last few weeks. The weather pattern is favoring a nice stretch of weather that will start today, and the nice weather will last all the way through the weekend. The weather map above is a look at what’s going on today at 500 mb, which is about 15 to 17 thousand feet up in the atmosphere. It shows a large area of high pressure across the middle part of the country. It looks like an Omega Block  setting up, which normally brings us quiet weather. It’s called the Omega Block because the high pressure looks like the Greek letter Omega. This pattern will break down early next week, and a chance of rain will return Monday. Most of next week looks mild, but some much colder air may return week after next. Enjoy the nice weather while we have it. On a side note, not one tornado was reported during the month of February across the entire United States. That is definately rare! Tornado stats date back to 1950, and this is the first time there hasn’t been a tornado reported during February during that entire time period.

We have set a date for our annual SKYWARN Storm Spotter Training Class, held in conjunction with the National Weather Service. The class will be held from 7 PM to 9 PM in Performance Hall, the large auditorium on the campus of South Louisiana Community College. The class is free to attend and parking is free, too! The PowerPoint presentation will cover all aspects of severe weather, from the observation systems, to the warning process, to severe storm identification. You’ll walk away with a much better sense of what to look for in the sky to spot developing funnel clouds and tornadoes. Best of all, you’ll be able to help keep others safe by reporting any severe weather you experience. This helps tremendously in the warning process as your information is ultimately disseminated to all media outlets. We hope you’ll find time to attend.

Meteorological spring is underway, which means we can take a look back at what was an unusually cold and snowy winter in South Louisiana. The temperatures in the image above are for the Lafayette Regional Airport. The average winter temperature was 49.0°, or 4.7° below the normal of 53.7°. December was 3.0° below-normal, January was 3.7° below-normal, while February was a whopping 7.7° below-normal. We’ve been getting progressively colder-than-normal since Thanksgiving, but that trend should turn around by this weekend. Not only was the winter cold, but we had two accumulating snow events. The 0.3″ that fell on Friday, December 4, was the earliest measurable snowfall on record for Lafayette, breaking the record from the 1.0″ that fell 12/11/08. A couple months later, 0.4″ fell on February 12. Some parts of Acadiana received even more snowfall during each event. A third snow system produced some flurries in parts of Acadiana early Wednesday, February 24. Bring on spring!

As a kid, I remember March being labeled and known as a windy month. When my parents bought me a kite, it was normally in March. March is one of my favorite months; it’s the month spring starts, the flowers start showing off their true colors, the days keep getting longer, and people start doing many more things outside. Also as a kid, this was  normally the month my brother and I got the baseball gloves out and started throwing around the baseball to get ready for baseball season. It’s a busy month for a meteorologists, too, because the weather pattern is normally very active. Believe it or not, though, March is our third driest month for Acadiana, but we start seeing our severe weather chances go up during the third month of the year. For Acadiana, the average time frame for the last freeze  is usually the last week of February into the first week of March, so we are very close to seeing our last freeze of the winter. As for frost, we usually see those several weeks into March, and since it’s been a colder than normal winter, the last one may be late March. It still looks like the dead of winter outside now, but it will look totally different by the end of  the month. Enjoy the third month of the year.

Tomorrow is the first day of March and it is going to be a soggy one. As a low pressure system moves eastward over the area, it will cause numerous showers and t’storms across the area. Typically, we say that March is “in like a lion and out like a lamb.” That will be the case tomorrow as the weather is ferocious like a lion. The severe weather threat looks to be slim, but heavy rainfall and small hail is possible, especially toward the coast. Lets hope the end of March is a quiet and tranquil one like a lamb.

As I’ve touched on in previous posts, there has been a significant correlation between the phase of the Arctic Oscillation (AO) and the temperature across Acadiana and North America as a whole. The Arctic Oscillation, one of many cyclical variables that control climate, turns negative when there is warming of the stratosphere over the Arctic. During these spells, surface temperatures are usually above-normal at the pole, but pools of very cold air head southward. The result across much of the U.S. is colder-than-normal air. The image above shows the tight correlation between our average temperature and the phase of the AO. The strong negative phase of the AO from the beginning of December thru the middle of January led to unseasonably cold air for us. The uptick in the AO phase correlates with the warmer air we saw during the second half of January, while the strong negative phase for much of February equates with our average monthly temperature running 7.9° below-normal. The red lines at the right show the computer model ensemble forecasts of the AO phase over the next couple weeks. Notice the model consensus is towards a slightly negative, or even neutral, phase. This should lead to temperatures getting at least closer to normal for us by the middle of March. In fact, we’re seeing signs of that in the computer models we use to forecast weather. Temperatures should trend to normal or above by next weekend, with 70s actually returning. Keep in mind, though, that our normal high is already up to 68° and rises to 71° two weeks from now. We’re due for a warming trend - it’s been a cold winter!