The Farmer's Forecast: Edouard Forms in the Gulf

By Nick Mikulas

Cenla Weather

Tropical Storm Edouard will make landfall near the Texas Louisiana border later this afternoon. This system is going to be fairly compact, so I don’t expect far reaching impacts across Louisiana, but there will likely be some coastal flooding, heavy rain, and gusty wind over southwest Louisiana.

We are very near the peak of hurricane season, and this cluster of storms took advantage of light wind shear, and very warm ocean temperatures over the last couple of days. The only real stumbling block for this system has been dry air in the mid levels right along the coast. The small core of this storm should allow this to become a strong tropical storm by the time it makes landfall later today. The lack of moisture over a large part of Louisiana means we will see scattered storms for most of the state, with most of that activity west of I-49 and along the coast. 2-4 inches of rain will be possible over Cameron and Calcasieu Parish, with scattered bursts of rain elsewhere. 

Coastal flooding is also a concern with storm surge levels of 2-4 feet in Cameron Parish, and 1-3 feet all the way to Morgan City. There will also be 20-40 mph wind over Cameron Parish, with a decent breeze of 10-20 mph into the rest of southwest Louisiana. As things go for Louisiana, this storm shouldn’t be much when we compare it to our long history of tropical mischief. It could cause some issues near the Texas border, but the heavier rain should be confined to southeast Texas.

Beyond this, the remnants of Dolly could bring another boost to our moisture levels later this week and weekend. That will mean more isolated to scattered afternoon storms, but I still don’t see a widespread soaking rain in our future. I’ll be watching it all!