2/1 – The Chief’s “Cold Frontal Passage” Wednesday Morning Forecast

The front has made it to the coast and now just to the south of the area. Not a lot of changes from current thinking, more or less just cosmetic. Patchy fog this morning will be back again for some marine areas tonight.

Thursday and Thursday night will be a bit different as we will begin to turn attention toward rainfall. Knowing what will occur will take getting the upper disturbance to eject eastward via the another kicker moving out of northern Mexico later today. This situations will develop a surface low pressure over the western gulf and send it to the NE and this is exactly how all models are running things. As this occurs, it should make for a strong precip gradient over the area or wherever the surface low travels. The widespread overall precip totals are not impressive as they only add up to around an inch in the highest locations, but there could be a strip of higher amounts over the NW portion of the area where a rain shield sets up through the day Thursday, but exactly where will be the question to resolve.

At the moment, this looks to be a line from BTR to MCB. But this could end up being farther NW or SE. Severe storm numbers remain low and the marginal risk will suffice with the token one or two storms that can perfectly situate themselves to achieve max inflow from the warm sector.

As the cold front moves through, the low clouds will be stubborn to move out and could stay with some light showers here and there for most areas Thursday night. But Friday seems to be coming around to what the models have showing for a few days now and cleaning the area.