Severe Weather Possible in Louisiana on Thursday

Today will be a great day for those who have outside chores or activities to get those plans completed. Today's forecast should cooperate nicely with just about anything you'd want to be doing outdoors. For the most part, skies across Louisiana will be sunny and temperatures will be just a slight bit higher than seasonal averages.

The nice weather will be coming to an end though. Forecasters with the National Weather Service Office in Lake Charles are suggesting conditions across most of the state will be warm and breezy today. Afternoon high temperatures will reach into the middle to the upper 80s depending on where in the state you happen to be.

Conditions do begin to change on Thursday and the Storm Prediction Center has noted that there will be a significant risk for strong to severe storms across the northern and western two-thirds of Louisiana by late in the day on Thursday.

Northwest Louisiana will be under an enhanced risk of severe storms while much of north-central and central Louisiana will be under a slight risk of severe storms. Further to the south, the threat of severe storms lessens to a marginal threat.

Now as we zoom in on the severe weather threat specifically for South Louisiana and the I-10 corridor. You can see in the graphic below from the Weather Service Office in Lake Charles the greatest threat for strong storms should stay north of US 190 but residents of Lafayette, New Iberia, Morgan City, and Baton Rouge will still need to remain weather aware, especially during the early morning hours of Friday.

The GRAF Model as depicted in this graphic from Rob Perillo and KATC Televisions suggests that most of Acadiana won't begin to see the stronger storms until midnight or later Friday morning.

The good news is that the system is forecast to move out of the area by Friday afternoon. This should leave us with a mostly sunny but rather warm weekend. And that could just be the set-up for some really warm temperatures for next week. Some of the forecast models suggest temperatures in the middle 90s by next Wednesday across much of South Louisiana. So, enjoy these three weeks of springtime, they are about gone.