Day 6 of New Orleans, LA (KMSY)

Persistent low-level clouds led to a very slow cooldown to 50F last night. With the low-level clouds breaking up only in the last few hours, it didn’t really warm up much until the past few hours, with a high of 60-61F. Maximum wind is only 8 kt or possibly 9 kt. With the low-level clouds mostly gone, and calm wind, there are just high cirrus clouds that will thicken somewhat later tonight, hampering radiational cooling somewhat but not nearly as much as last night. The high surface dew points will limit the cool down somewhat, with fog and low cloud formation and condensation releasing latent heat once the temperature drops through the dew point. Still, I’d think that temperatures will fall below most model guidance in this kind of setup. The fog and low clouds will break up tomorrow, and with slight warm advection via a weak southeast wind, a quick warm up to warmer temperatures than today will occur, with residual mid to high-level clouds and cumulus clouds forming perhaps limiting the warmup slightly. Still, I expect there to be enough sun for temperatures to warm up more than today and above most model guidance. Easterly winds will strengthen somewhat later in the day, with perhaps a stronger burst of east-southeasterly winds in the evening that often is stronger than modeled, perhaps associated with the sea breeze from the Gulf of Mexico. There will still be no precipitation as the storm over the Southwest U.S. moves very slowly eastward and is still too far west to impact the weather much in New Orleans. 

 

Source: PivotalWeather