Low-end severe weather threat for tonight and early tomorrow, heavy rain threat

The weather pattern is definitely getting more active across the area today as low pressure develops to our north and an upper-level trough moves into the area.

This will spawn rain and storms across the region for today, tonight, tomorrow, and early Saturday.

With wind shear high in the atmosphere, a severe weather threat is in the mix for today, especially across southeastern Texas. Instability (temperature drop with height) will be lacking with this system, which could keep the storms from getting too crazy across Acadiana. For this reason, I'm skeptical we see a widespread severe weather event across Acadiana from this system. However, a warning or two is definitely possible along and south of I-10, especially tonight and into tomorrow morning. This is the time frame when instability offshore will make its most inland extent. If we were to see anything, the main hazards would be damaging winds and tornadoes.

A more concerning factor will be the threat of heavier rainfall. This threat will be a longer duration threat than the severe threat. The front, which is responsible for giving us these storms, will stall near the area through the day tomorrow and early Saturday, with multiple rounds of storms moving in. This will cause rainfall totals to add up across the region with the latest high-resolution models showing a swath of 3-7 inches of rainfall across the region.

If we see these rainfall totals over a 48-hour timespan we'd be fine, but we always have to watch for flash flooding, which occurs when copious amounts of rainfall occur over a shorter duration of time.

The rain should end by early Saturday and we finally clear out nicely through Sunday and early next week.