When it's summer in South Louisiana we expect to get an afternoon thunderstorm or two. In fact, a lot of us welcome those afternoon breaks that give us a chance to come inside and cool off while we watch the raindrops fall. Of course, after the rain has fallen and the sun comes back out we get to experience the Congo-like steaminess of an equatorial jungle, but who's complaining, right?

weather.gov/lch
weather.gov/lch
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Forecasters with the National Weather Service Office in Lake Charles have placed a large portion of South Louisiana under the gun for some pretty potent thunderstorms today. In fact, if you look at the forecast for the workweek, all the way through Friday, you will see an elevated chance of rain and storms in the forecast narrative.

Now, just to be clear, the Storm Prediction Center is not anticipating that any of the thunderstorms will reach severe limits but even though it's not in the forecast, we can't rule it out. What we will likely see is an atmospheric battle between the sea breeze which pushes showers and thunderstorms onshore from the Gulf of Mexico and another outflow boundary.

wpc.ncep.noaa.gov
wpc.ncep.noaa.gov
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That outflow boundary is coming from a cold front which is positioned across northern Arkansas and Oklahoma. Convection associated with that front will likely spark off big thunderstorms in North Louisiana today. Those storms will create an outflow boundary that forecasters believe will collide with the sea breeze creating some pretty significant downpours for parts of the state.

KATC/Bradley Benoit
KATC/Bradley Benoit
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The HRRR model, you can see that above, from KATC suggests that some of the heavier showers or storms may be arriving later this afternoon for the I-10 corridor but we can't rule out a pop-up shower or thunderstorm at any time during the daylight hours.

While forecasters don't anticipate a widespread flooding event there could be localized flooding over a short period of time due to the very heavy downpours of rainfall that could be associated with some of these thunderstorms.

The rain chances will finally start to ease up as we get closer to the weekend. By Saturday forecasters believe rain chances will fall back to their seasonal norms for this time of year with only a slight risk of showers in the afternoon and evening for both Saturday and Sunday.

nhc.noaa.gov
nhc.noaa.gov
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Oh, by the way, there is good news out of the tropics. The National Hurricane Center is not forecasting any tropical development for the next five days.

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