The extreme heat continues for this afternoon with highs topping out in the triple digits once again. The fire danger looks to continue through the weekend with extreme heat and limited rain chances, albeit a few storms could be possible Saturday afternoon. Sunday will be another day like Thursday, as we could come close to our all-time record high of 107 degrees once again.

The pattern reverses by next week, however, as a trough pushes in from the north, moving the heat dome to the west of us. This trough will push a weak front through here on Monday, giving us a healthy rain chance of 40-50%. This front may get hung up near the coast, keeping storm chances in the forecast for southern Acadiana on Tuesday.

A piece of this trough may get cut off from the main flow, spawning low-pressure overhead for Thursday and Friday. Hopefully, this gives us more storms for the latter parts of the week. Both the European and GFS models are very similar in this outcome, so confidence is increasing that Mother Nature will give us a much-needed break from the drought and heat next week. Highs will likely be somewhere in the 90s, depending on the amount of cloud cover and storm action on a given day.

TROPICS

A low-pressure center, currently across the western Caribbean, has a high chance for development as it moves north towards the Yucatan peninsula. Most model guidance has this low pressure developing into a tropical cyclone, heading northward into the Gulf of Mexico. As it stands now, this system should get picked up by the aforementioned trough, steering it well east of Acadiana by the mid-parts of next week.

We’ll still watch things closely through the weekend for any changes.