Dry and hot locally; tropics heating up again

BATON ROUGE, La. (WAFB) - High pressure continues to dominate the local weather pattern. The high pressure ridge is centered to our west, meaning we are on the outside edge and seeing northerly flow. This is promoting lots of sunshine and drier, less humid air. Afternoon highs will continue to warm through the rest of the week eventually reaching the mid to upper 90°s by Thursday. Thursday happens to be the first day of Fall. We might tie a 101-year-old record that day!

The forecast will remain mainly dry until our next fall feeling cold front arrives at the beginning of next week. The front will push through sometime Monday delivering scattered t-showers Sunday PM and for a portion of Monday. Temperatures will see a nice fall behind this front for most of next week.

The tropics continue to ramp up as we continue through the peak part of hurricane season. Fiona continues to strengthen as it moves towards Bermuda in the next few days. Tropical Depression #8 has formed in the Central Atlantic Tuesday morning and is forecast to remain in the open waters of the Atlantic. But it won’t be guaranteed our next name (Gaston) because a tropical wave heading towards the Caribbean now has a high chance for future development. This tropical wave has been designated Invest 98-L. Long-range models do try and develop this system into a tropical cyclone as it moves towards the Gulf of Mexico. How strong it gets and whether a U.S. landfall occurs is still too early to tell. We still have plenty of time to monitor the evolution of Invest 98L, but it serves as a reminder that we are not done with hurricane season yet and to remain prepared.

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