Flood Watches Posted – Ominous Outlook for Louisiana’s Weekend

Forecasters with National Weather Service Forecast Offices in Lake Charles, Shreveport, and the Baton Rouge/New Orleans office are using a lot of descriptive words in their narratives to describe this weekend's weather.

From DeRidder to New Iberia and Morgan City eastward the government "weather guessers" are using terms like "active", "excessive", and "threat" in much of the information they are providing ahead of this weekend's storm system.

A quick scan of the National Weather Service Mosaic Radar shows a large area of rain and storms over the southern and south-central Texas coast. This area of rain kicked up by an upper-level low-pressure system is slowing sliding northward up the coast and toward Louisiana.

There seems to be very little doubt in the forecast. If you live in South Louisiana along the I-10 corridor you will get rained on this weekend. The better questions are now when will that rain start, when will that rain end, and how much rain are we likely to see as the storm system moves through the area?

The further south and west you are the earlier you will begin to encounter rain. For portions of Cameron and Calcasieu Parish that could be as early as lunchtime or shortly thereafter. For the Lafayette area passing showers could race across the region during the day today but the most likely scenario for heavier showers suggests 4 pm or later.

Unfortunately, that will interfere with music fans attending tonight's Cajundome Concert featuring hitmakers Rascal Flatts. Concertgoers should expect showers to become heavier as doors open for tonight's show. Also, the walk back to the car might be a wet one as well. Showers and potentially heavy rainstorms are expected throughout the evening into early Saturday.

Rain chances will remain high across the area for much of Saturday as well. There will be a break in the rain threat by the time Saturday night rolls around. If you're wondering about rainfall totals the National Weather Service Office in Lake Charles offers this visual.

As you can see, rainfall amounts of 2 to 3 inches will be common across the area but many locales could see more than 3 or 4 inches in some of the heavier downpours. Flood Watches have been posted through  Saturday night for all of southwestern Louisiana.

There is also a marginal risk that some of the storms could reach severe limits later tonight and Saturday. However, the bigger concern appears to be heavy rain and heavy rain falling over a short period of time. You probably need to plan for that, especially during the day on Saturday.

Conditions across the area improve on Sunday with no major threat of rain or even storms in the forecast through the end of next week.