Extraordinary 'Heat Burst' Raised Louisiana Temps 18°+ in 12 Mins

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Louisiana gets hot for pretty much the entire spring, summer, and fall. If that's news to you - first off, welcome to our state! The oppressive heat just goes with the territory. I have always considered it a pretty fair trade for all of the delicious food we have in Louisiana. Basically, I could move somewhere cooler - but, then I'd probably starve to death.

That being said, I feel like I would be remiss if I didn't point out that the wild temperature ride that some Louisiana residents experienced this weekend was decidedly not-typical. Sure, we have heat waves - but this is something even worse. According to the Advocate, the folks in Calcasieu Pass (that's due south of Lake Charles near the Louisiana coast) experienced a rare "Heat Burst" on Saturday morning.

Reportedly, around 1:30 am, the temperature went from 63.9° to 82.8° - in the span of 12 minutes! According to the National Weather Service's official record, the mercury rose18.9° in that time - which is more than a degree a minute!

Meteorologists say that this freak of nature only occurs at night under some pretty specific circumstances:

A thunderstorm or shower is dissipating
The air coming in is hot and dry
There is a "shallow inversion" layer of cooler air on the surface

When these events happen at the same time, it creates a giant pocket of warmer air just waiting to be released. The cool air at the bottom eventually loses all of its moisture (which is the thing keeping it cool), and when that happens the hot air drops like a hot potato on the area below it.

As far as meteorological phenomena are concerned, you shouldn't be concerned about this one. According to the experts, it's very rare. The last known occurrence in Louisiana happened in Lake Charles back in 2015.