The weather is described for New Orleans for the past week is shown in Figure 1. The days were mostly sunny and warm with temperatures in the seventies. There were clear sunny skies during the day. Friday was the warmest day of the trip with temperatures reaching eighties. In New Orleans I went to the French Quarter Festival on the boardwalk of the Mississippi on Friday, which can be seen in Figure 2. the skies were clear and sunny. On Saturday, I flew out of New Orleans and the sky was extremely cloud covered as seen from my plane window in Figure 3. The French Quarter Festival was cancelled on Saturday due to impending bad weather. New Orleans was anticipating tornadoes and extreme thunderstorms. New Orleans received 2 to 5 inches of rain during the storm and my flight was one of the last to leave the airport before it was shut down.
Monday Tuesday Wednesday
Thursday Friday Saturday
Figure 1. Weather in New Orleans over the past week.
Figure 2. Clear sunny skies at the French Quarter Festival in New Orleans on Friday.
Figure 3. Cloudy skies in New Orleans visible from plane window on Saturday morning.
Travel plans to get back to Eau Claire were greatly disrupted by winter storm Xanto covering the Midwest. The original flight I had booked to leave on Saturday was cancelled due to the storm, so I booked a different flight on Saturday, but my connecting flight from St. Louis to Minneapolis was cancelled. My travel partners and I still took the flight to St. Louis in fear of being stuck in New Orleans due to the approaching storm there. In St. Louis the group rented a van and drove to Madison where we spent Saturday night. We only encountered heaving rain and no snow during that drive. On Sunday morning we drove the rest of the way from Madison to Eau Claire. We drove through heavy snow and icy road conditions. The bad visibility we drove through can be seen in Figure 4. The group made it safe to Eau Claire on Sunday afternoon. The forecasted snow amounts for Wisconsin from the winter storm can be seen in Figure 5. Eau Claire is predicted to receive 12 to 18 inches.
Figure 4. Bad road visibility driven through to get to Eau Claire in winter storm Xanto on Sunday morning.
Figure 5. Forecasted snow amounts predicted to occur in Wisconsin from winter storm Xanto.
