1/30 – The Chief’s “Cold Frontal Passage Tonight” Tuesday Afternoon Forecast

The next reinforcing shot of dry air will move down behind a new backdoor cold front overnight/Wednesday morning. There is not a lot of boundary layer moisture transport ahead of this front so there is not a lot for models to use in respect to giving a fog forecast. Tonight, will show a suppressive environment ahead of a slowing front with not much moisture pooling but enough to make conditions better than this morning for fog production. There will be a few places that get fog tonight, but as always with radiative fog, its just locating those areas.

Wednesday night looks to be poor for fog production as whatever moisture was able to pool ahead of the front will be flushed by the front. Surface high pressure will move through and east of the area by Thursday bringing onshore flow ahead of the next system bringing much deeper moisture. Showers could start developing ahead of this system and spreading over much of the area by noon Saturday and t-storms could be found along and west of the Miss River by the same time. Storms will begin to become well developed along and ahead of the cold front Saturday. Once the rain starts, it won’t stop but will not be heavy the whole time. The intense rainfall will be quite progressive with this system, but could still cause some flooding issues as it will be a warm and efficient process mainly over the southern half of the area. Question of severity is a good one and at the moment, there is not a lot of instability farther inland. The best location for severe looks to be along and south of a line from Picayune to Baton Rouge which brings in all of the Mississippi coastal counties and the southern half of the area. The main hazard looks to be damaging winds and although tornadoes do not look to be the main hazard, we can never rule it out. This complex of storms will be fast so any strong or severe storms will be brief. The heavy rainfall will also be very progressive but light rain will linger well behind this system.