Weather Service Issues ‘Refreshing’ Fall Outlook for Louisiana

Step outside any community in Louisiana this afternoon and you will hear them. They never seem to stop and when they do, there is a serious cause for alarm. The "they" in this case are the air conditioner units that serve homes and offices in Eunice, St. Martinville, New Iberia, and Abbeville.  Their mission is critical in Louisiana during the month of August.

But someday, okay, in about ten days, the calendar will flip a page and it will be September in Louisiana. Most of our high schools and colleges will have started their fall football seasons on or before September 1st and we should start looking forward to much cooler temperatures, right?

The Climate Prediction Center, a division of the National Weather Service and NOAA are the folks that are charged with looking into the future. The scientists at the CPC don't have a crystal ball, but they do have a lot of computers and some other great tools that allow them to provide an accurate guess as to what our weather might be like not only across Louisiana for the next 90 days but for the CPC offers an educated glimpse about how the rest of the nation will fare in the upcoming three month time span.

The two big factors CPC scientists consider are temperature and precipitation. October marks the end of Louisiana's "wet season" and begins the transition into what climate specialists call our state's "dry season".  So, for this prognostication, we will have one month of "wet" (September) to consider, one month of "dry" (November), and one month that's in the middle (October) to consider as we make our plans.

Here is what the CPC is suggesting for the next 90 days as far as precipitation is concerned.

Almost all of Louisiana and southeastern Texas fall in the "average" bucket as far as rainfall is concerned. That would be good news if we could get enough rain to keep the temperatures down and help set the basin up for crawfish season. Last year's drought did a number on Louisiana's crawfish industry and State Ag officials are already expressing concerns about this year's crawfish crop.

So, that's the outlook for rainfall but when it comes to "refreshing" we are talking about temperatures, right? Unfortunately, the temperature outlook is not as positive as the precipitation outlook. Here's what the CPC is suggesting Louisiana and the Gulf South will experience over the next 90 days or so.

As you can see the entire nation with the exception of Alaska is going to have a warmer-than-normal fall. Louisiana temperatures will be trending slightly above normal but that doesn't mean it will be as hot as it has been during the past three or four weeks.

By the time October rolls around to Louisiana our daytime highs tend to top out in the middle 80s while overnight lows fall into the middle 60s. By the time November rolls around you can subtract another ten degrees from each of those averages. So, yes, we will have refreshing temperatures this fall.

And if you compare them to the temperatures and drought conditions we were facing last fall, it will seem very pleasant indeed. Now, if we can just sidestep what is still forecast to be an active tropical season, we'll be golden.