Louisiana Flood Threat ‘Enhanced’ For Saturday

Almost everyone I know in Louisiana is an "observer of life". Sure they participate in things but they'll sit back in Plaquemines Parish and watch a cruise ship float by above them on the Mississippi River. In Mamou, they'll buy you a drink and watch you wear out your dancing shoes before 9 am on a Saturday. And in Lafayette, they'll look at you with disgust in their eyes but love in their hearts if you attempt to put tomatoes anywhere near a good gumbo.

One other observation that a lot of folks in Louisiana have managed to fine-tune to an anxiety-producing level is reading the colors on weather radar and associated weather maps. Here's the drill if you don't know, the brighter the color on the radar or the weather map, the more likely something bad is going to happen.

Here's a wonderful case and point for Louisiana this Saturday, November 9, 2024.

The yellow shading suggests a slight risk of "an excessive rainfall event". As you can see, that covers just about all of Louisiana. There is a smaller red-shaded area that covers much of central and southwestern Louisiana. That area has a moderate risk of an excessive rainfall event. Then inside the yellow shaded and the red shaded areas, there is a pink shaded area. This represents a high risk of excessive rainfall. 

Let me show you in a little more detail courtesy of the National Weather Service Forecast Office in Lake Charles. 

Kudos to NWS Lake Charles, follow them on social media, for a wonderful visual. On the right, you can see a photographic illustration of the kind of high water much of Louisiana could see. On the left is a close-up of the WPC Graphic we showed you earlier. 

The Weather Prediction Center is suggesting that rainfall amounts of over two inches will be common across much of southern and central Louisiana today. However, some areas, mainly in the red-shaded area in the graphic above, could see localized rainfall amounts of eight inches or more.

As we go through the afternoon and into the early evening hours you'll hear the term "training" Here's what that means in meteorology.

Training is when showers and thunderstorms pass over the same area for a long period of time. Much like a train rolling down train tracks these storms can produce copious amounts of rainfall in a short period of time in a localized area. And that's a major concern for anyone in Louisiana who lives south of Alexandria, east of Lake Charles, and west of New Orleans today.

If you'd like to see where the worst of the weather is right now, here's the official National Weather Service Radar link.

Unfortunately, the rain threat will grow as the day wears on meaning some of the worst weather in Lafayette and Baton Rouge could be occurring during some rather important football games today. There are also several festivals happening across the region as well.

The rain will slowly move out of Louisiana on Sunday. Veteran's Day on Monday and the balance of the workweek appear to be calm and quiet with much cooler temperatures arriving by Tuesday morning.