Years ago, I took my young boys over to Pensacola Beach and rented a house for 4 days.  It rained for 3 of the 4 days so my first experience with the "white sands" was not a pleasant one.  One of my late friends (Don Noel) owned a house at Seagrove Beach and we had many wonderful experiences there over the years.  The only negative was the 5 1/2 hour drive.  After Don passed, we found Henderson Park Inn just east of Destin and had many terrific times there, BUT it was 4 1/2 hours away.  In the last 10 years, we've discovered that the white sands of Gulf Shores, Orange ..read more

It's really hard to find something to talk about when we have no weather coming for the next 5-7 days.  However, when I walked outside this morning, and thought back to less than 3 months ago (Jan. 24th freeze), my backyard (In my humble opinion) looked stunning!  Gone were all the dead plants and flowers replaced with brilliant colors. Let's start with the back fence. Can you find it? When we moved in after Katrina in 2006, the fence was fairly new, but I knew over time the wood would weather and look ugly.  The solution?   Plant Jasmine  It totally has cove ..read more

In San Diego, they expect this kind of weather 8 months of the year.  In south Louisiana, we might get this kind of weather 8 weeks of the year (April & October).  Who do you think appreciates it more?  Has to be us since we know in another 4 weeks, the road to Hell/Heat begins as we drop into that deep Valley we call Summer.  The upper energy that brought us a cold front & tornadoes has lifted up into Canada with a deep trough wrapping clouds around it.   That is keeping folks in the Great lakes & Northeast in sweaters and jackets as there rema ..read more

FOX 8 Sportscaster Sean Frazende often says, "after further review" when discussing a play.  Yesterday, the NWS indicated the Slidell tornado was an EF-1 strength.  Today, they went back and (based on damage) "after further review" increased the strength to an EF-2.  Here's the preliminary map put out by NWS through FOX 8 Meteorologist Amber Wheeler. Note the tornado touchdown at 10:03 AM and only lasted 9 minutes before lifting back up.  The path was 9.3 miles, which shows you why these brief, short lived tornadoes are difficult to predict well in advance.  Thank ..read more

Imagine being in SE Oklahoma (Broken Bow) Monday evening getting text alerts on my phone saying schools will be closing, City hall will be closed, have your pirogue ready, yada, yada.  I hadn't seen the weather since last Friday so I had no clue what was going on.  Luckily I flew back last night before the storms.  The usual overhype turned out to be reality so bravo to the SPC, NWS for giving us the warnings ahead of time.  Since I've been gone and am just getting back into seeing what is happening, I won't spend a lot of time talking about the weather.  However, what ..read more

Some of you maybe wondering why I haven't been posting.  The simple reason is there has been nothing to talk about since our weather has been so nice.  The other reason is I have been spending time with my sons & grandson (Ethan's 5th Birthday) PLUS we're going to journey into the path of totality for Monday's solar eclipse.  New Orleans will see a partial eclipse , but it won't turn dark like in the small path of totality. Oklahoma City/Edmond is also not in the path of totality so we have to journey 3-4 hours on the back roads of SE Oklahoma to Broken Bow, wher ..read more

Oh sure, the headline screams over-hype, Much like the old newsroom guidance "if it bleeds, it leads".  Headlines are designed to grab your attention and Joe Bastardi of WeatherBell Analytics did just that back in December 2023 when he issued his first early 2024 season outlook.  His numbers were scary (25-30 named storms) based on warm (above normal/average) Atlantic water temps. and no El Nino.  Now, Dr. Phil Klotzbach of Colorado State University has issued their preseason outlook, and it pretty much agrees with the Weather Bell Outlook.  Not as high as Weather Bell's, b ..read more

The Storm Prediction Center (SPC) has increased the severe risk for today to level 4 (Moderate) out of 5.  Fortunately for us, they move the greatest risk well north of us tonight & on Tuesday as a strong cold front approaches.  The trigger increasing the risk is an upper Low over new Mexico that is being ejected out to the NE. The top graphic is valid for today with the middle for tomorrow. Tornado Watches (red boxes) & Severe T-Storm Watches (Blue boxes) indicates where the severe threat is now.  The green circle shows where the jet streams are splitting enhan ..read more

On this cloudy Easter Sunday, you can get an indication our weather is about to change.  With the surface high well to our east, brisk SSE winds are bringing higher dew points (increasing low level moisture) along with warmer air.  Despite all the clouds, we have no rain around as there is no trigger to fire off any storms.  The coming trigger will be a cold front Tuesday night that will be forced eastward by that stubborn West Coast upper trough. Note how chilly it is out over the western states while the Southeastern states are very much in Springtime.  SPC is ke ..read more

Back in December, the NWS announced it was moving their powerful radar from Slidell to Hammond in an effort to better cover the growing Baton Rouge area.  The Mobile radar already covers the Mississippi coast so moving the Slidell radar farther to the west made sense.  Since they're back working, the radar hasn't had any rain to follow. A lot of Pacific moisture is streaming in from the west, but there is no trigger to provide lift to produce any showers.  That storm off the West Coast is stalled, much like previous storms and we'll have to wait several days for it to k ..read more