The Farmer's Forecast: Heavy Rain and Severe Weather

By Nick Mikulas

Louisiana Farm Bureau News/Cenla Weather

Fantastic weather is on tap for all of Louisiana through Friday. Then come the clouds, and then comes a lot of rain. Any sort of work that requires drier ground should be done by Sunday, as it looks like 2-4 inches of rain, with the possibility of more, will fall between Monday and Wednesday. It’s possible there could be some light rain on Sunday, but that doesn’t look nearly as significant as what the first half of the week will bring. I’ve attached the rain forecast for the state from www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov. This gives a nice, general idea of what will fall over the next week. Totals are forecast to be generally in the 2-4 inch range, with some heavier amounts possible, especially over north Louisiana. 

Along with the potential for heavy rain, it looks like severe weather could be an issue, and this could be a multi day severe event. There will be at least some severe threat in the state from Monday through Wednesday, and as of now, the Tuesday afternoon through Wednesday timeframe is the one I’m watching most closely. There are some indications that this threat could be pretty significant, and I’ll be watching closely, and will update as details become clearer. For now, plan on plenty of rain to start the week, with a clearing trend by Thursday that should last through next weekend! I don’t see any major cold coming into the state. I’m getting more and more optimistic that we are done seeing freezes for the season. The latest freeze I see out of the main northern Louisiana stations, including Shreveport, Monroe, and Alexandria is April 13th 1940. Oddly enough, that occurred in Alexandria, and not one of the weather stations further north.