NEW ORLEANS (WGNO) — Another round of showers and storms will develop on Saturday and provide some relief from the heat. Once again these could produce locally heavy rain due to them not moving much. Temperatures will warm into the low 90s but will be held in check by rain and clouds. It won’t rain everywhere but we should see enough to help the heat.
Sunday looks like a different story. Less rain coverage will mean highs in the mid 90s with heat index values well above 105. An excessive heat watch is in effect for Sunday, and we could see that upgraded to a warning. Monday also looks very hot before showers and storms move in later in the day.
The strong tropical wave in the Atlantic we have been watching the past couple of days is now Tropical Depression 2 as of Friday afternoon. This system looks very impressive on satellite and will likely strengthen to a named storm by tonight or Saturday. The next name on the list is Beryl.
It is somewhat unusual to get a named storm that far out in the Atlantic this time of year, and these storms usually do not intensify as they would later in the season. However all indications are this will become our first hurricane of the season and could even get close to major storm status.
The forecast models are in good agreement of the path over the next few days. This system will continue west through the Atlantic and eventually move into the central Caribbean. Beyond that there is a lot of uncertainty since it will be more than a week out.
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