8/16 – Rob Knight’s Friday Morning Forecast

A diffuse frontal boundary appears to be situated roughly across the MS barrier islands through Lake Pontchartrain. A drier air mass will keep t-storm development in check across the interior portions of the forecast area with better coverage taking place along and south of the boundary in the outer coastal waters. This afternoon’s heat index readings will top out around 105 at a few locations. Values are expected to be reduced a few degrees Saturday as humidity is tamped down a few percentage points with some dry air mixing during the afternoon hours. Otherwise, temperatures just slightly warmer than normal through tonight then trending near normal Saturday.

The overall pattern remains rather docile in nature with a weakness between two prominent ridges aloft. This should allow for near normal temperatures and a decent probability of rain each day – generally in the 50-60 percent range for land/gulf breeze regime afternoon thunderstorms over land areas and nocturnal near shore activity…beginning Sunday.

Models are hinting at an easterly wave moving across the Caribbean Sea, into Yucatan and eventually into the lower Gulf mid to late next week. This will be monitored in subsequent model runs but expecting large swings in depiction with each model run through that time frame.