textproduct: New Orleans/Baton Rouge

KEY MESSAGES

Updated at 546 AM CDT Tue Apr 21 2026

- A warming trend will bring the area back to the mid 80s for highs by the end of the week along with the next chance of rainfall.

- The threat for showers and strong thunderstorms will increase going into the weekend as a front approaches northern portions of the area.

SHORT TERM

(Now through Friday) Issued at 105 AM CDT Tue Apr 21 2026

A deep upper trough was off the Atlantic Coast this evening, with ridging over the Rockies. A shortwave was dropping down the east side of the ridge over the Great Plains. A southern stream shortwave was moving eastward across west Texas, sending high clouds our way. A deep upper low was off the northern California coast. At the surface, high pressure was centered over Alabama, while low pressure was moving out of Canada into the Dakotas. Temperatures at 1 AM CDT ranged from 46 at Pascagoula to 61 at Lakefront Airport in New Orleans, with only some high cirrus clouds moving across the area. The local airmass was very dry (precipitable water 0.44 inches), with essentially no moisture below 500 mb.

The shortwave over Texas will continue eastward, and be over Alabama Wednesday morning, and off the Atlantic coast by Thursday. Shortwave ridging will build into the area for Thursday and Friday. However, with the surface high to our east continuing to shift eastward, winds will turn southerly, increasing moisture across the area. Precipitable water values finally get back to "average" Wednesday afternoon, at around an inch. Moisture will continue to increase to about 1.2 inches Thursday and 1.4 inches Friday. That should be sufficient for at least isolated convection west of Interstate 55 on Wednesday and Thursday, and across the entire area on Friday. Not expecting showers/storms to become widespread, but most areas probably wouldn't complain too much if they got a little rain.

High temperatures should creep up a degree or two each day, getting into the lower and middle 80s by Friday. Overnight lows will gradually warm as well, with most areas into the 60s by Thursday morning. We'll be about 5 degrees above normal by the end of the week.

LONG TERM

(Friday night through Monday) Issued at 105 AM CDT Tue Apr 21 2026

As brought up last night there was a slight trend towards a drier scenario heading into the weekend but there are still some decent discrepancies between the operational runs and ensemble means with the sensible weather. The ensemble means from the GFES/ECS/CMCE are all a little more optimistic with respect to rain this weekend while the operational runs of each aren't. That said the GFS is still the driest with little to no rain over the area while the GDPS(Canadian) is the most optimistic of the operational runs. The ECM is a little odd as it had a rather solid line of convection moving south out of central MS and then almost dissipates it completely. It has another MCS like system sliding into the area Sunday. NBM is still in that 40-50% range but that is a slight trend down from yesterday however like we mentioned last night, the models all season have had this too wet bias in the medium range and then back off as we get closer to the day the rain was supposed to occur. Combine that with the old trusty saying "when in drought leave it out". Yeah it sounds crazy but it tends to workout. At this point I would be leaning to back off on the PoPs Friday night and through the weekend but will reluctantly just stick with the high end chance PoPs from NBM.

Looking at the weekend, that ridging over the southeastern CONUS will have flattened out already by Friday night thanks to the increase and arrival of the subtropical jet. This will lead to mostly zonal flow however, heights don't drop and may actually rise even though the the ridge will have been suppressed. This is occurring because the ridge will likely be building over the southwestern Gulf and into Mexico and southern TX. So the steady to rising mid lvl heights won't help rain chances much. There is some indication that there could be a line of convection along the cold front which will be slowly moving into the Lower MS Valley Friday night. If that is the case the question is will it have enough momentum to continue to surge south-southeast into the area before finally dissipating. Not sure how much to buy into that as the ECMWF is the only model really indicating that and it appears it may be suffering from convective feedback. There isn't a noticeable s/w in the hght contours but it shows up at the same time the large area of convection develops in the model so there is either something there and it just becomes more evident as the convection develops making it more legit or something causes the convection to develop in the model and the hghts fall in response and because of that the convection feeds back off of that and continues to push south-southeast, so leaning towards the feedback issue and thus not trusting the big blowup of convection. Well, that moves through and we move into more zonal to possible weak west-northwest flow. There will be additional impulses moving through the mid lvl flow and if we are under a west-northwest flow it would allow a subtle disturbance to slide into the area Saturday night/Sunday. If we remain under more zonal flow then we will likely not see much in the way of impacts from any subtle impulse. Again leaning more towards a drier solution which would also favor a hotter weekend. Highs now are expected to be in the mid to possibly upper 80s this weekend but MOS and the NBM haven't quite started to trend that warm yet. /CAB/

AVIATION

(12Z TAFS) Issued at 546 AM CDT Tue Apr 21 2026

All forecast terminals will be VFR at forecast issuance and expected to remain that way through the forecast period. A large cirrus shield to our west has been moving into the area all night. Any cloud ceilings are expected to remain above FL100 through most or all of the forecast period. Eventually, there will be at least low chances for SHRA or TSRA during the day on Wednesday for our western terminals, but that's just beyond the valid forecast range for this package.

MARINE

Issued at 105 AM CDT Tue Apr 21 2026

Winds have been abating somewhat over the open waters, with most observations below 20 knots. Will allow Small Craft Advisory to expire, and have replaced it with Small Craft Exercise Caution headlines for most of the open waters through the afternoon. That headline may need extended into the overnight hours for some of the zones. Winds will gradually regain a southerly component today, and remain southerly through the end of the week. There will likely be multiple periods over the next 5 days where sustained winds get a little above 15 knots, potentially requiring Small Craft Exercise Caution headlines on a few occasions.

LIX WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

LA...None. GM...None. MS...None. GM...None.