Over-Achieving Cold Morning Temperatures in Louisiana

Louisiana Targeted for Over-achieving Extreme Cold This Weekend

Fig. 1-2: Hard Freeze and Freeze Warnings continue this morning across Louisiana. The over-achieving cold was caused by air mass trajectory across snow cover in the Missouri Valley directly into Louisiana.

Discussion: Hard Freeze and Freeze Warning’s covering the southern half of Louisiana are in effect until 9AM (Fig. 1). This morning, temperatures have reached their coldest point of winter 2021-22. The cold is unexpected. Temperatures have been observed about 5F below forecast from late last week. One contributor to the over-achieving cold is the northerly air mass trajectory into Louisiana across snow cover not too far away in the northern Missouri Valley (Fig. 2). The Louisiana low temperatures for the weekend of January 22-23, 2022 are indicated in Table 1.

Table 1: Saturday/Sunday morning low temperatures from Port Arthur/Beaumont to Gulfport.

The weekend cold morning temperatures in Baton Rouge are the coldest FOR JANUARY since January 17-18, 2018 when the thermometer dipped to 14F and 17F respectively. Last February, the thermometer dropped to 20F on Feb. 20 and 5 of 6 days (February 15-20) produced 20’s for low temperatures at this location.

Temperatures moderate today. However, there remains risk of <32F for the week/weekend ahead. In Baton Rouge, low temperatures are close to 32F Wednesday through Friday morning. Sneaky cold 20’s are not likely. However, 26-29F are likely next Saturday and Sunday morning.