First Alert Forecast: One more day of limited rain; still watching Invest 93L too

LAKE CHARLES, La. (KPLC) -First and foremost there is NO way to know what if any impact the potential tropical system may have on SWLA at this time. But it could be an issue later this week…

For now the big concern for SWLA will be the heat and humidity along with fewer cooling showers to provide relief. This is thanks to high pressure moving west across the northern Gulf; the high makes it more difficult for rain to form. However Tuesday we had a few showers over SWLA even with the high in place, this is why I am leaving a low chance of rain in our forecast through Wednesday. But even with these isolated showers the heat will be the bigger story with heat indices between 102 to 107 during the afternoon hours!

Now the bigger story Invest 93-L and is located over land in the Big Bend region of Florida. This system is expected to move west across Florida tonight then into the northern Gulf by early Wednesday. What happens beyond that is a huge unknown with multiple scenarios that could range from no impact to at least some issues locally. Once it reaches the Gulf sometime Wednesday the models may begin to have more consensus on a possible track and strength.

First the good news, this will likely remain close to land through the week and that may be enough to limit development and maybe prevent any tropical development at all. Again too early to say on that, but a track farther north is better for sure. And models today have been trending toward a track much closer to land.

Now the bad news, no matter what this leaves limited time to plan for whatever this becomes or does not become. This is why we always say you should have a plan in place on June 1st and know what you would do if something were to threaten our area.

Here is a quick breakdown of the scenarios.

1. A track close to land with a system that barely becomes organized at all. This could remain well east of our area entirely and have little impact here at all.
2. A track just far enough offshore that it is able to become a tropical depression or storm(next name is Dexter). Depending on the track it could still remain far enough east to have limited impacts here in SWLA.
3. If the track is much farther south it would be out over warm waters for longer and have more time to strengthen. This could allow a storm to become a hurricane. Timing would be a little later if this occurs because it would be farther offshore, though maybe only changing the timeline by 12 to 24 hours.
4. These scenarios are ranked from most to least likely as well. But worth noting that no scenario is 100% off the table…

The National Hurricane Center continues to show a 40% chance of possible tropical development over the next few days. Meanwhile the large scale models have shown very little to nearly nothing developing with this system for the last few days. However there are a few outliers showing it developing. The question is are those outliers on to something or just making something out of nothing??? Time will tell and hopefully Wednesday will begin to answer those questions.

As of this moment I see no direct reason to be worried here in SWLA, I have increased our chance of rain Thursday through Saturday to account for the possible system nearby. Now if you have travel plans now through the weekend anywhere from New Orleans east into Florida I would be more concerned about rain ruining your plans and you should definitely follow the forecast closely.

Speaking of rain, that will be the only real concern from this system regardless of whether or not it develops. For now I am broad brushing SWLA with rainfall totals of 2 to 5 inches through Sunday, but that still means there could be localized areas with higher totals. No doubt the greater risk of heavy rain may be east of SWLA, albeit just barely and that’s the concern. Weak disorganized systems tend to be difficult to forecast heavy rainfall as it all comes down to wear rainbands develop and how long they sit in any one location. This means we will have to watch the radar closely over the coming days.

This is also a good time to remind you about using extreme caution with what you see on social media, there are a lot of people that post things simply to gain more likes and shares with little regard for actual meteorology. Remember Jacob, Max and I all live here in SWLA and care about this community and if we see anything concerning we will let you know ASAP.

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