The Farmer's Forecast: Flood Risk on Thursday

By Nick Mikulas

Louisiana Farm Bureau News/Cenla Weather

Heavy rain is likely, once again, and it looks like some of the hardest hit areas in recent weeks will once again bear the brunt of this next system. There will also be at least some potential for severe weather. Over the last 24 hours, there has been an uptick in forecast rainfall amounts, as well as severe weather parameters. I've included forecast rain totals through Thursday night. That's when the first significant wave of rain will move through, bringing widespread 1-3 inch totals, with the northwestern quarter of Louisiana likely to see the heaviest totals. Some totals could exceed 5 inches in isolated areas, and that is enough for WPC to issue a slight to moderate risk for excessive rainfall. That means there is at least a 15% chance of exceeding flash flood guidance in the slight risk area, and at least a 40% chance in the moderate risk. It looks like Wednesday will be mostly dry, but after that, we are right back into the heavy rain threat as soon as early morning Thursday.

There will also be a severe component to this system, with at least some risk for severe weather on Thursday and Friday. Once all is said and done, it looks like heavy rain, on the order of 2-4 inches, with isolated higher totals will fall north of I-10, and west of Baton Rouge. Once again, coastal areas will see much lower totals, with many areas not even seeing an inch of rain. For more on how much water will fall, and more technical discussions on heavy precipitation threats, you can visit www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov. If you want to find out how much rain is forecast in your area for a given time, go to where it says QPF. That stands for "quantitative precipitation forecast" which just means how much water is forecast to fall. It looks like conditions will improve somewhat this weekend, but scattered rain will linger. I'll be watching this all closely.