The Farmer's Forecast: More Rain, Possible Frost
By Nick Mikulas
It looks like another round of severe weather for Louisiana on Saturday. We’ve had a few nasty storms over north Louisiana these last few days, while the rest of the state has been dealing with 30-50 mph wind gusts. There’s more wind on the way, and a cold snap thrown in. It’s not quite Easter, but I think this will go down as the Easter snap.
First off, wind will continue to be quite strong until this front moves through Saturday night into Sunday morning. The Storm Prediction Center has an enhanced, level 3 of 5 risk for severe weather across a large part of Louisiana, with the rest of the state under a level 2 of 5, slight risk. There will be the potential for all modes of severe weather from this system, but I think the main problem will be scattered damaging wind gusts, and isolated tornadoes. Remember, most of you won’t see a direct impact from the worst of this. It’s just best to be ready for that chance that you’ll have to seek shelter in a hurry.
Another note is that there have been some extreme rain totals to our north, and this will continue for the next few days. This is already prompting flood warnings that are being issued for the middle of the month along the Mississippi River. Check your local river forecasts if you are anywhere near the lowlands close to the Mississippi, or any of the rivers that it feeds. This could be a pretty long term issue, so I want to give you as much lead time as possible. After this, we cool down and dry off. I think we stay above freezing, but Tuesday morning could bring some 30s to north Louisiana, and I can’t rule out some patchy frost. The record latest freeze date in Shreveport is April 11th, so it’s not impossible to see a light freeze this late. I don’t think it’ll happen, but I’ll be watching closely.