5 days ago I mentioned the high likelihood of something developing in the Gulf of Mexico mid to late week. The Euro was right for the wrong reason as an area of low pressure slowly moved from Georgia to the SW and into the Gulf of Mexico, it is now sitting there as a closed area of low pressure getting ready to undergo rapid development in the warm waters off the coast.
The models have delayed the development from what we saw last week, and have really focused in on south-central Louisiana as the target, at this time it looks like a near miss for New Orleans but Lafayette, Baton Rouge, and Lake Charles look very vulnerable to intense rainfall. Given that the United States had its wettest winter ever, and the midwest had a very wet spring and early summer and most rivers eventually find their way through Louisiana to reach the Gulf, we could be on the way to a big disaster. The storm is forecast to drift to the west and eventually go due north into Louisiana, with winds of 60-70 mph(gusts to mid-80’s) from the south, this wall of water will confront the abnormally high river levels and could cause extensive flooding. Here are the projected storm totals starting today (waves from the disturbance are already drifting in).
Widespread totals from 10-20 inches throughout the region with 27 inches in some areas.
How does that affect us? It does not, I will do another Update on us Friday, the Arizona Meteorologists are talking about the formation of the Monsoonal Ridge that is developing over us, unfortunately, at this time, there is no decent associated moisture for the high pressure to tap into. Any moisture we get should be light “recycled” moisture. A trough will be moving back in over the weekend and it is unclear as to what that will bring with it, hint, it will be interesting to see how the trough mixes with or responds to the tropical depression (leftover) in the plains.
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