KPLC 7News Live at Five 5 - 5: 30 p.m. - KPLC First Alert Forecast

[00:00:00]forecast with Meteorologist Max Lagano.

[00:00:04]>> And a very good Sunday late afternoon, early evening where it is still quite warm and humid. We'll just call it hot outside. So, the heat is still going to remain the main issue for the rest of the afternoon, for the next few days.

[00:00:18]And of course, we have Tropical Depression Two that we still have to track as well. And don't worry, we'll talk about all of that in the next few minutes here. But starting outside right now, yeah, it is a warm end to the Sunday afternoon. The heat index between 100 to 105° out for most locations, including 101 in Lake Charles, 105 at Chenault, and 103 in Sulphur. So, if you have any evening plans outside today, make sure that you continue to stay cool and hydrated. When the sun goes down after sunset, we'll start to finally cool things off a little bit overnight. Which is going to set the stage for yet another hot and really mostly dry day as well. Partly cloudy skies, a quick warm-up with similar heat indices. In fact, the actual temperature may be a couple degrees warmer compared to today, which means the heat index likely tops out anywhere from 100 to 105, and maybe even close to 110 in a few spots. So, again, make sure you continue with those hot weather precautions. And if you have any sort of outdoor work to do, make sure you take frequent breaks. And as far as any rain goes, the model here wants to have a couple of pop up showers, mostly off to our east. I can't rule out maybe a stray one or two over Southwest Louisiana. But again, most locations stay dry. And that means the heat still the primary issue at least through Wednesday with mid to even upper 90s a pretty good bet on a daily basis. Now, by Thursday, we may cool things down at least closer to normal at temperatures into the low to mid-90s. Part of that slight drop in temperatures has to do with the approach of tropical depression two. So, let's take a look once again at how things are shaping up so far this evening. This is a look at the visible satellite, so if you were looking down at the Earth's surface, 22,000 mi up, this is what you would see, the actual cloud tops. And again, not a whole lot of thunderstorm activity around at all.

[00:02:17]There's still a lot of dry air being filtered down from the north on the western half of it. And as long as that remains the case, it's going to be very difficult for it to strengthen, at least at a quick pace. Now, we still are likely to see some gradual strengthening into a tropical storm over the next few days. The latest advisory has 30 mph winds, not really moving a whole lot as well. It's pretty stationary. But yes, it's still likely to become a tropical storm as it slowly heads in direction of the northern Gulf Coast, and yes, towards southeastern Louisiana. With that being said, what happens after that will strongly depend on whether or not it can organize a bit more tomorrow.

[00:02:57]Here's what I mean. If you take a look at the individual spaghetti models here, yes, the cone is in our direction, and the center of the track is as well, but there's a big spread in the actual models. The northern solutions have a far weaker storm due to wind shear and more land interaction. So, if any of these tracks here were to take place, impacts here would be very limited. Now, if it were to get a bit stronger tomorrow, it probably [snorts] ends up farther offshore, but that's the other piece of the puzzle, because if it ends up stronger tomorrow, high pressure may actually push it farther south offshore.

[00:03:31]So, aside from maybe some elevated tides at the coast, that too could actually cut down on our impacts. This is a model that I'm going to show that kind of illustrates that. This particular version of future cast gets it going pretty quickly tomorrow during the daytime, and then strengthens it, but it's that high pressure overhead that forces most of it to the south. Whether or not it actually plays out like that, it's an unknown. But, again, that's one scenario that means that we may not actually see a whole lot if that were to take place. So, here's the bottom line.

[00:04:04]Yes, there's still a chance of tropical storm conditions for some part of our area anytime from Wednesday into Thursday, probably at the coast. But, the odds of seeing any sort of significant impact still unlikely at this time. If that changes, we'll let you know. But, maybe we see a few more showers and storms by the middle of the week. That's our forecast. We'll have sports [music] after this.