The Farmer's Forecast: Serious Rain Event Across Louisiana
By Nick Mikulas
Serious, flooding rain will be possible through at least Friday. As I write this late Monday afternoon there are wide ranging rainfall totals across the state. Some areas in the coastal marshes haven’t seen rain, and other areas have seen over 5 inches, with maximum radar estimates approaching 9 inches. This is a fast start to what will be a long term, and serious rain event across Louisiana.
Most of the state is under a flood watch and I think we will remain under one through the week. We’ve seen multiple flood warnings, and that will continue as a deep, tropical atmosphere continues to flow overhead. A frontal boundary is turning this deep moisture into heavy rain, and that will continue into this evening. I think we get somewhat of a lull Tuesday night into Wednesday morning. As that happens, it’s looking increasingly likely that an area of low pressure will emerge over the northwestern Gulf. As of Monday evening, The National Hurricane Center has a 50% chance of this developing into a tropical system, which is up from 30% earlier in the day. No matter what, we will see a deep slug of moisture move overhead, but if this system can develop an inner structure where that moisture really consolidates around the center, we could have some big problems.
This first wave, which started late Sunday and will slow down Tuesday evening should bring fairly widespread 3-7 inch totals with isolated higher amounts. We’ve already seen higher amounts in some places. Some areas south of I-10 may see less rain, but the second wave will make up for that. The second wave will arrive Wednesday afternoon into Thursday, and this could bring another 4-8 inches of rain, and a lot of that could fall in a relatively short period of time. Even after this system departs, we will see high rain chances Friday and Saturday as a tropical airmass remains in place.
Overall, I expect most areas to end up getting 5-15 inches of rain by the time things finish up on Saturday. Isolated 20+ inch totals are within the realm of possibility. This could obviously cause significant flooding problems. I’ll be watching things closely. I wish I had better news.