Today is Fat Tuesday, the final celebration before the beginning of Lent on Ash Wednesday. Previous Mardi Gras celebrations on the Gulf Coast have had some interesting weather to deal with.
Mid-February average highs are in the upper 60s, with lows around 50 degrees in New Orleans. But that smooths out a lot of weird weather around the day of the big bash.
According todatacompiled by the National Weather Service in Slidell, Louisiana, at least 0.01 inch of rain has fallen on about 31% of Mardi Gras days since 1874.
That included last year, when just over a half-inch of rain fell. But the story on March 4, 2025, was a threat of severe thunderstormsforced some of the festivities earlier in the dayin New Orleans. Four weak tornadoes touched down in southeast Louisiana that afternoon and evening, west and south of the city.
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Some Mardi Gras were a steam bath. Just three years ago, the high reached 83 degrees on Feb. 21, 2023, tied for the hottest Fat Tuesday on record in New Orleans.
Bone-chilling Mardi Gras aren't as unusual as they sound. Ten out of the 152 Mardi Gras days had freezing temperatures, according to NWS-Slidell.
Five years ago was the coldest Mardi Gras in the Crescent City, when highs reached only 33 degrees. It wasn't the cold that canceled Mardi Gras that year, but rather the COVID-19 pandemic.
Perhaps the weirdest Mardi Gras weather was on Valentine's Day 1899, when 3 inches of snow and ice covered the ground.After snow was cleared from the parade route, the festivities went on, as scheduled, despite the cold.
Jonathan Erdman is a senior meteorologist at weather.com and has been covering national and international weather since 1996. Extreme and bizarre weather are his favorite topics. Reach out to him onBluesky,X (formerly Twitter)andFacebook.
