1/1 – Rob Knight’s New Year’s Day Forecast

An arctic air mass is firmly established across the region and will be through the week. Freezes or hard freezes are expected each night for most areas through Saturday. The coldest periods will likely be tonight/Tuesday morning and Tuesday night/Wednesday morning. Lows tonight will range from the mid-teens to the lower 20s, except for somewhat higher readings right along the immediate coast, as strong cold air continues. Temperatures Tuesday night are bit trickier as clouds associated with an approaching short wave moving through the backside of the eastern U.S. mean upper trough may act to hold temperatures up somewhat, but still a hard freeze is expected for most locations. The vigorous short wave that will be approaching the region Tuesday night may also draw enough Gulf moisture northward to squeeze out some flurries across sections of extreme SW Mississippi & southeast Louisiana…mainly south and southwest of Lake Pontchartrain. Since the lower levels of the atmosphere are so dry, any snow that reaches the ground will be quite light…so no accumulation is expected.

The current freeze and hard freeze warnings for this morning/today will continue and a hard freeze warning is in effect for all locations tonight/Tuesday morning and Tuesday night/Wednesday morning. The wind chill advisory for about the northern half of the forecast area will continue this morning and with a wind chill advisory now in effect for the entire forecast area tonight into Tuesday morning. The upper air pattern will become somewhat less amplified over the U.S. over the weekend with the eastern U.S. trough shifting off the coast. As a result, temperatures will begin modifying with near normal highs in the lower 60s forecast on Sunday.