Storms Marching to and Through Louisiana Today

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.

Strong storms won't be the only issue with these storm systems over the next few days. There is a potential for some very heavy and flooding rainfall to accompany some of the stronger storms. It is also possible that localized flooding could take place under some of the heavier showers or storms. Flood watches have been posted for portions of the state because of this threat.

Here's how KATC's Rob Perillo detailed the rain threat as forecast by the Euro Model.

We actually could be looking at a stormy forecast for Thursday, especially during the day but as of now, forecasters do believe conditions will begin to improve by at least late in the day Thursday. This should lead to a mostly sunny and dry, for the most part, weekend across much of the region.

As of now, we are not thinking that this will be a huge severe storm outbreak like we experienced last week. This will more likely be a rain event. Regardless, you're going to need to plan to spend most of your day inside for at least the next few days.

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