Gradually drier, hotter throughout the week with views of the Gulf

BATON ROUGE, La. (WAFB) – Today’s forecast: Scattered showers and thunderstorms are expected today, but rainfall is likely to be less than on Monday as tropical moisture slowly moves southwest.

The maximum temperatures in most places are between just over 30 and just under 32 degrees Celsius.

An increasing pressure gradient between the tropical system in the southern Gulf and the high pressure system to the east will create windy conditions. East winds of 10-20 mph are expected, with stronger gusts likely.

Rest of this week

Potential Tropical Cyclone #1 will slowly move toward Mexico, helping to pull most of the tropical moisture south of our region. At the same time, increasing high pressure should help make our forecast drier and hotter.

By Friday and into the weekend, maximum temperatures are expected to be above 35 degrees and the probability of rain will be only 20 to 30 percent.

Expanded outlook

Our forecast for the period after the weekend depends heavily on the possibility of another wave of tropical moisture hitting parts of the Gulf Coast. It’s too early to get into details as there is still considerable uncertainty, but for now I expect the chance of rain to increase somewhat, which will cause highs to approach normal somewhat.

Tropical Update

Potential Tropical Cyclone #1 continues to rotate over the southern Gulf of Mexico this morning. Although conditions are generally favorable for development, it has had difficulty forming an inner core so far, keeping it only loosely organized. Some organization is still expected and it could develop into Tropical Storm Alberto in the next few days before reaching Mexico.

And it’s a map you don’t see often, but the National Hurricane Center highlights the general area where PTC #1 is currently located and indicates that another system could potentially develop there by the weekend. The chance of development is 20% as of Tuesday morning. There is significant uncertainty about what will develop in this area, if anything, so we’ll just keep an eye on trends as the week progresses.

Finally, the NHC continues to monitor an area east of Florida, but the probability of development is only given as 20%. The system is expected to move generally west to west-northwest over the next few days.

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