Cool temperatures will persist through much of the week. Sunshine will not.

THE FORECAST:

Today and Tonight: Beyond a freezing morning, expect plenty of afternoon sunshine through Tuesday. Winds will remain light and northeasterly and therefore high temperatures will not go too far above 50 degrees. The low temperature forecast is tricky for Tuesday night. Some clouds are expected to advance in from the west before daybreak. The clouds would hold thermometers just above 32 degrees except for a few isolated pockets north and east of Baton Rouge. If the clouds arrival is delayed, a brief freeze is possible elsewhere.  

Up Next: Dry surface air will keep rain chances at zero through Wednesday. However, a warm front will lift into the region from the southwest. Clouds will thicken through the day thereby keeping thermometers well below average in the 50s. Rain is expected to develop overnight into Thursday.

A surface low and cold front will cross the Baton Rouge area, producing showers and possibly embedded thunderstorms throughout most of the day. Fortunately, the storm system will only stick around for about 24 hours; the cold front will sweep through on Friday morning and clear the area out in time for next weekend.

THE EXPLANATION:

Tuesday morning water vapor imagery revealed a deep plume of moisture streaming into the Southwest U.S. from the Pacific Ocean. Rain had begun across Arizona with mid to high clouds eastward into central Texas. These clouds will overspread the area overnight into Wednesday and should arrive just in time to prevent most locations along and south of I-12 from reaching freezing. Despite the advance in clouds, the mid to low levels of the atmosphere will be too dry for any rain to develop during the daylight hours of Wednesday. As winds turn more southeasterly Wednesday night, low level moisture will arrive. Showers will develop from southwest to northeast overnight and should overtake most of the area by sunrise Thursday. Onshore flow and rising dew points will keep thermometers in the 40s and 50s. An upper level trough and associated surface frontal system will move across the area on Thursday maintaining unsettled weather. Working with ample moisture, these features will produce enough lift for steady periods of rain. There could be some thunderstorms development but low instability and shear make the threat for severe weather very low. Thermometers could sneak up into the 60s due to the brief advance of Gulf moisture. The whole complex will shift east by Friday and expect a nice drying trend leading into the weekend. Because the storm system has Pacific and not Canadian origins, no significant cooling will occur behind the front. Near average temperatures are projected for the weekend.  

--Josh

The WBRZ Weather Team is here for you, on every platform. Your weather updates can be found on News 2, wbrz.com, and the WBRZ WX App. on Apple and Android devices. Follow WBRZ Weather on Facebook and Twitter for even more weather updates while you are on the go.

NAPOLEONVILLE - Assumption Parish Chief Deputy Bruce Prejean has been demoted and disciplined one week after he admitted to having a lengthy affair with Judge Jessie Leblanc. 

That disclosure made a mess out of the cases he investigated and she presided over. At least 600 of them are under review since the judge was sworn in dating back to 2012. The demotion comes with a $6,000 pay cut for Prejean.

"As a result of internal findings relative to the aforementioned issue, on January 17, 2020, Bruce Prejean's rank was reduced to captain over the Uniformed Patrol Division and his compensation was reduced by $500 monthly," Sheriff Leland Falcon said.

That reduction in pay is relative to the pay raise he received when he was promoted to the position of chief deputy. 

All of this came to light last month when Judge Jessie Leblanc refused to sign a warrant. At the time, Sheriff Falcon said she told him that she had a personal relationship with Prejean. That prompted Falcon to alert the district attorney for Assumption Parish, who notified about 20 defendants about the possible conflict. 

When the WBRZ Investigative Unit broke the story about the letters going out, Judge Leblanc told WBRZ that her conflict was with an undercover agent, not Bruce Prejean. Prejean was also asked by the sheriff, who said at the time the relationship was purely platonic. 

In the weeks following that story, Sheriff Falcon submitted to a lie detector test which showed his version was accurate. Prejean then also confessed to a lengthy affair that went on for years with Judge Jessie Leblanc. 

When we reached Leblanc by phone last week, she claimed Prejean was being "dishonest."

Leblanc has not been seen in public since this scandal broke, and an ad hoc judge was appointed by the Supreme Court to hear her cases at least until Wednesday of this week.