Louisiana Bracing For Two Day Excessive Rain ‘Event’

When you live in Louisiana, especially along the I-10 corridor that includes the cities of New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Lafayette, and Lake Charles you are keenly aware of flooding and the potential for flooding where you live, where you work, and where you drive.

Over the next two days, September 4th and 5th, you might encounter some difficulties with rising or high water around your physical location. The National Weather Service Forecast Office in Lake Charles is already posting reminders and warning messages on their social platforms reminding you to "Turn Around, Don't Drown". Yeah, the threat of flash flooding across Louisiana over the next couple of days is a very real threat.

The Weather Service has even taken the proactive step of issuing a Flood Watch for portions of the state even though the early morning radar scans from Lake Charles and Baton Rouge/New Orleans show the bulk of the heavy precipitation is still well offshore at this early hour. The image below was made at 2:30 this morning.

The forecast for the next several days is rather complex but in a nutshell here's what's going on. We have an old frontal boundary draped across the coastal sections of Louisiana. You might remember that "tropical low pressure" that was just off Louisiana's coast over Labor Day Weekend, it has moved inland but will be moving slowly to the east and northeast today and Thursday.

You can pin any flooding rains on the interaction of those two weather features combined with Gulf moisture. It's going to be wet, that's for sure. But the issue with this current weather scenario is less about "how much rain will fall". It's more about "how much rain will fall over a short time".  That's what is known in weather vernacular as an Excessive Rain Event. 

The Weather Prediction Center monitors those kinds of events and they have placed a large portion of southern and central Louisiana at a "Slight" risk of inundating rains through Thursday. You can see the geographic description of where forecasters are anticipating the heaviest rain on the graphic provided by the Lake Charles Forecast Office of the National Weather Service.

If you are in the yellow-shaded area of the map above, you have a 15% to 39% risk of seeing flash flooding conditions within 25 miles of your location. We should note that even though the risk of rain is great, 90% for most of the I-10 corridor in Louisiana today, it won't be raining all the time.

The region will experience periods of showers, sprinkles, and yes, some very heavy downpours over the next 48 hours. The silver lining in those clouds is that the Storm Prediction Center is not anticipating a severe weather outbreak across Louisiana.

Get our free mobile app

We'll be happy to keep you ahead of the storm, just download our App from the link above and be sure to set up your "Alerts" in the settings portion of the App to include Breaking News and Weather. That way the latest information on today's inclement weather forecast can be delivered directly to your device.