Excessive Rain Event Likely for Louisiana on Friday

The weather in Louisiana here of late has been either feast or famine when it comes to rainfall. Most of last year Louisiana and the Gulf South were embroiled in a drought of historical proportions. Fortunately, those drought conditions have eased considerably but now we have the problem of too much rain.

We should clarify that "too much rain" comment. As averages go, Louisiana is doing okay with rainfall in 2024. We're not too far off from where we are supposed to be, if you can believe the law of averages. Our issue with rainfall over the past few weeks has not been that it has rained a lot. Our issue has been that it has rained a lot in a very short period of time.

When storm clouds deliver rainfall rates that are too much for storm drains to handle the National Weather Service calls that an excessive rainfall event. Portions of Louisiana are under a moderate, slight, or marginal risk of just such an event during the day today.

Forecasters with the Weather Prediction Center have placed cities such as Baton Rouge, New Orleans, Shreveport, Alexandria, and Monroe in the "marginal risk" for excessive rainfall today.

The threat of flooding rains moves to the "slight risk" category for persons who work and live in cities such as Lafayette, New Iberia, Crowley, and the southern third of Toledo Bend Reservoir.

There is a "moderate risk" of excessive rainfall in extreme southwestern Louisiana. This would include the cities of Lake Charles, Sulphur, and Vinton, and a large portion of southeastern Texas including the city of Houston.

The "silver lining" in these storm clouds is that the Storm Prediction Center has not forecast severe storms for this same area of the country. Granted, there could be thunderstorms and some of them could be heavy. But it doesn't look as if high winds, hail, and possible tornadoes will be included in your Friday forecast.

Flood Watches are in place for much of the area that we've described and as of 0300 this morning the National Weather Service Radar in Lake Charles was picking up strong storms in the offshore waters. These storms did include severe weather warnings and those warnings might be issued later for Cameron Parish as the storms move onshore.

The National Weather Service Forecast Office in Lake Charles is suggesting that showers and storms will begin to dissipate across Louisiana later today. Saturday should be a mix of clouds and sun with temperatures in the middle 80s. The forecast for Sunday does include a slight risk of showers but some sunshine too. The afternoon high temperature on Sunday should be about 85.