Arctic air early next week, wintry mix is possible Monday night

We'll continue to see nice weather this weekend with warm afternoons and chilly mornings. Sunday is expected to be another nice day with highs in the upper 50s to lower 60s with mostly sunny skies. We'll see a chilly start tomorrow morning with lows once again in the upper 30s.

The Arctic air will be arriving through the day on Monday. Morning start Monday will be in the mid-30s and temperatures may only warm into the upper 30s to lower 40s early in the morning before temperatures rapidly plummet through the afternoon and evening. Our high temperature may occur early in the day and temperatures could fall to near freezing by Monday late afternoon and evening. Expect strong northerly wind gusts as well as the Arctic air makes its way into Acadiana. More importantly, there is the threat of winter precipitation late Monday into early Tuesday.

Global models have hinted at the possibility of a brief window of winter precipitation, mainly freezing rain, Monday night as temperatures fall near freezing and precipitation still ongoing.

Now, and through the beginning of the event, we get high-resolution models, which are short-term models but are much better at handling these shallow Arctic air masses. The NAM (North American Model) is the first one to have its say this afternoon. It shows a window of frozen precipitation starting Monday evening and continuing through the overnight. Much of this precipitation may evaporate before reaching the ground, and the ground would need time to cool for accumulation to happen. For this reason, ice accumulation on this model is modest, showing less than a tenth of an inch. This would be enough to cause some slick bridges and overpasses and minor travel issues on Tuesday morning. Other high-resolution models will be coming out tomorrow, so we'll have a much better idea tomorrow and through early Monday. Any deviation in precipitation timing and strength could affect those accumulation numbers so stay tuned! I'm not expecting a major ice event as it stands now.

Temperatures may barely get above freezing on Tuesday, if at all, settling in the 33-36 degree range. This is after a hard freeze Tuesday morning with temperatures in the mid-20s.

Even colder conditions are expected Tuesday night into Wednesday morning, with overnight lows in the upper teens to lower 20s. A hard freeze is expected, both in temperature and duration of time below freezing, so exposed pipes will have to be wrapped!

Temperatures should finally get above freezing on Wednesday, with high temperatures in the lower 40s.