Senior meteorologist Jason Hansford with the National Weather Service in Shreveport shared some information with the Lincoln Parish Journal Thursday afternoon about the projections for severe weather today and winter weather across north Louisiana starting this weekend and into next week.
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LPJ: What does the severe weather look like Friday morning?
Hansford: We’re getting a lot of milder and more moist air streaming in the Gulf of Mexico. So that’s just kind of priming the areas we’re having a strong upper level disturbance and associated cold front that will be moving through central Louisiana and the rest of the area early Friday morning. We’re looking at the potential for a line or a broken line of strong to potentially severe storms that will quickly and I mean quickly move east across north Louisiana probably between the 4 a.m. and 6 a.m. time frame. These storms will be capable of producing strong, damaging winds. You may get some hail out of it and the possibility of an isolated tornado with that as well.
LPJ: So that front will move through quickly (Friday)?
Hansford: Temperatures will be very mild in the morning. In fact, it’s going to probably be pretty deceiving because temperatures by daybreak Friday will probably be in the lower 60s. But then we’re going to get this cold front moving through. And so temperatures are going to quickly drop into the 40s by late morning and through the afternoon Friday. And winds are going to pick up out of the west northwest, probably around 20 miles an hour, with gusts in excess of 40 miles an hour. So it’s going to be a stark contrast. Be sure you dress warmly for Friday and just be ready for the wind and the colder temperatures because they’re they’re coming in behind this front.
LPJ: And what about the possibility of winter weather early next week?
Hansford: The models have trended faster with the colder air moving into north central Louisiana behind this more Arctic cold front. And so we’re looking for that colder air to begin settling down across north Louisiana. It’ll be after midnight Saturday night, early Sunday morning. So when you wake up Sunday morning, we’re looking at temperatures below freezing across a good part of north Louisiana. We’ll probably see a little bit of warming during the day. And so we we should get up just a little bit above freezing, but probably not by much. But then once the sun sets, we’re looking at a prolonged period of subfreezing temperatures. It could be on the order of 48 to 60 plus hours of some subfreezing temperatures. We’re still watching this next upper level disturbance that will be moving through the area late Sunday night and through much of the day on Monday.
LPJ: Any chance of snow or ice accumulations?
Hansford: As it as it stands right now, it’s still looking like we could see some kind of a mixture of freezing rain and possibly some sleet across north central Louisiana during the day on Monday. That’s something you could actually look for. It’s probably going to start around early morning and then especially after daybreak come Monday morning. And that looks to persist through the better part of the day. In terms of accumulations, the models are all over the place right now. In fact, it appears much of north Louisiana will probably see more in the way of freezing rain and sleet with this than snow. The snow may end up being closer to the Arkansas-Louisiana line and then points further north. Any accumulating snows looks to be further north across those areas. But amounts in terms of ice is still very, very early in the game to know for sure, but still some accumulation on trees and power lines as well as bridges and overpasses are going to be possible. So traveling on Monday and even through Monday night could be pretty treacherous.
