Weird Backlash To Barry; Vermont To Have Miserable Week

Romance in the Louisiana flood this weekend.

Social media isn't really reality. We all know that.

Still, I'm irked by the types on Twitter and such that seem angry that Tropical Storm Barry wasn't "as bad" as a lot of forecasts.

First of all, Barry was and is pretty bad.  As of this morning, it was producing a relatively narrow, but intense rain band central Louisiana and southwestern Mississippi. This band had already produced up to 14 inches of rain and counting. Another three to eight inches of rain is expected within this band during this afternoon.

So destructive flash flooding is happening on top of the havoc Barry created this weekend.

Still, so far at least, flooding from Barry hasn't been quite as catastrophic as many people, including me, had feared. That should be a good thing. Sure, this event, like all big storms and such, are a teachable moment to help meteorologists and scientists make better predictions in the future.

There's always room for improvement. And people should ask questions if a forecast is botched. I'm not saying Barry forecasts were botched, mind you. But as usual, some areas had conditions that were different than forecast. Forecasting could have been better. Somehow.

That's one thing. Is quite another to act disappointed when a storm falls short of predictions and destruction isn't as extreme as feared. Grow up!

Barry isn't even done yet. Besides the flash flooding ongoing now, there's some risk in the Ohio Valley tomorrow. Plus, remnants of tropical storms can cause serious flooding long after they come ashore.

In 1995 for example, a lame Tropical Storm Dean came ashore in Texas on July 31. By early August, Dean's remains interacted with a stalled front in New England to cause a destructive flash flood over the northern half of Vermont.

I'm not saying history will repeat itself with Barry, but it ain't over 'til it's over. Speaking of which:

VERMONT FACES MISERABLE SUMMER WEEK

Great, low humidity conditions at a garden party at my St. Albans,
Vermont house Sunday. Big time humidity will come back
later this week, though.

Enjoy today, my Vermont friends,because the weather is going to turn just awful for the rest of the week. Unless you like stifling humidity, rain and the possibility of local flooding and severe weather.

Sunday gave us a welcome break from warmth and humidity. Thank goodness, because we had a big outdoor party at my place in St. Albans, Vermont and everybody was comfortable and happy.

It was in the cool 50s for most of us early this morning, and temperatures will get iinto the low 80s with low humidity this afternoon.

Then the humidity starts to skyrocket tomorrow. By Wednesday and Thursday, the remains of Barry will push in wicked high humidity. Plus, daytime highs will be in the mid-80s with lows near 70. Which is terrible sleeping weather.

There will also be fairly widespread showers and thunderstorms Wednesday and Thursday. Because of all the moisture around, the rain could be locally heavy.  Though at this point I don't expect any widespread flash flooding, local problems could easily happen.

The soil in Vermont currently isn't particularly wet, but if there's a tremendous amount of rain in a short period of time, you can still get in trouble.

It's looking as if the heat will get even worse Friday and Saturday. It'll stay just as humid, but temperatures could go into the 90s, especially if it's not very cloudy.

There will be some weak fronts and stalled boundaries hanging around Friday and Saturday. When it's that hot and humid the atmosphere is spring-loaded to set off some severe thunderstorms. All you need is a trigger. It's possible those little fronts and boundaries could set things off.

Yeah, not a good week, but it's summer, so what the heck.

Barry's Legacy Will Probably Be Another Epic Flood

Severe flooding in Louisiana in 2016 caused by a stalled weather system.
What is to become Tropical Storm Barry will also be moving
quite slowly, so it could unleash similar serious flooding
UPDPhoto by Bill Feig/The Advocate

UPDATE 1 p.m. 

s expected, that storminess in the Gulf of Mexico was upgraded to Tropical Storm Barry late this morning.

The National Hurricane Center says it now has a better defined circulation and has sustained winds as high as 40 mph, so Barry now qualifies as a tropical storm.

The system is still a disorganized mess though, with upper level winds and intrusions of dry air messing Barry up.

Still,  Barry is still expected to intensify, and might, MAYBE achieve hurricane status before landfall over the weekend.

That doesn't matter all that much, though, as all the rain with Barry is the real problem. Flooding is going to happen somewhere along the Gulf Coast. Probably Louisiana.

That said, the exact track of the storm is super uncertain. It could hit land anywhere between Mississippi and the upper Texas coast. Whereve it hits, the heaviest rain will come over and just east of where it comes ashore.

PREVIOUS DISCUSSION

The storm system that everybody's been watching in the Gulf of Mexico, the one destined to become Tropical Storm Barry, was still trying to get its act together this morning.

No matter what happens with this thing, though, it's almost guaranteed to bring somebody a terrible, epic flood. Once again, we'll have big time flooding in the news.

Wannabe Barry is still a wannabe because no real noticeable center of circulation had developed as of early this Thursday morning. Where that center forms will be key in where Barry goes. There's still questions on where precisely it will make landfall and at what strength it will do so.

Although everybody, including me, wants to know those particulars, in essence, it doesn't matter. The serious flooding from this is already almost locked in stone. It appears Louisiana or Texas and on up into probably Arkansas and Mississippi are at the greatest risk.

Yesterday, I mentioned how a storm surge from wannabe Barry pushing upstream along the already high Mississippi River could overtop levees. That's still a definite threat, but even if that doesn't happen, the flooding will be widespread and very dangerous.

One of the big reasons for that is wannabe Barry is in no hurry to get anywhere. Steering currents in the atmosphere are weak, so it won't move much. Which means the downpours will linger over a particular area for a long time, creating spectacular rainfall totals.

Current predicts are for at least a foot of rain in the areas especially targeted by Barry, and the latest best guesses are that would be Louisiana, possibly including the already flood-soaked New Orleans. Some areas could get up to 20 inches of rain.

This slow moving set of downpours sets up a potential disaster that has similarities to the stalled Hurricane Harvey in Texas back in 2017, or that no-name stalled August, 2016 storm that dumped up to 30 inches of rain on Louisiana, causing another epic flood.

Needless to say, flood watches are up along much of the northern Gulf Coast between the Florida Panhandle and central Louisiana.  I suspect those flood watches will be extended westward toward Texas, especially if it looks like wannabe Barry goes further west, too.

It's interesting that there is a hurricane watch up for coastal Louisiana even though wannabe Barry isn't even a tropical depression yet. At least as of this writing.  It's certainly possible this storm could reach hurricane strength by early Saturday morning, especially if it stays off the coast over the warm Gulf waters long enough.

This would add some wind damage to the mix from wannabe Barry. And be dangerous for very low lying coastal areas. Low, swampy areas south and east of New Orleans were already being evacuated this morning because of the risk.

Regardless of whether this turns into a hurricane or not, the inland flooding will be the real impact.  This year has been another in a series with devastating floods in the United States. And it's about to get worse, unfortunately.

Here's some video clips of the flooding in New Orleans yesterday that was probably a prelude to the upcoming, bigger flooding disaster:

Will "Wannabe Barry" Turn Into Another New Orleans Hurricane Calamity?

Serious flash flooding in New Orleans this morning. Is this a
prelude to an even bigger calamity from wannabe Barry?

New Orleans was badly flooded today as a storm that wants to become Tropical Storm Barry gathers steam in the northeastern Gulf of Mexico.

This morning's flash flood emergency in New Orleans was created by intense thunderstorms on the outer edges of that mishmash of Gulf thunderstorms that might become Barry. Up to six inches of rain fell in just three hours this morning.

Many parts of New Orleans, including the French Quarter were under water this morning. If the worst case scenarios with wannabe Barry play out, this morning's destructive flooding will look like child's play. Things have the potential to get very difficult in the Big Easy.

You might remember my post a couple days ago that mentioned a cluster of thunderstorms that had its origins in Missouri and Tennessee was drifting down to the Gulf of Mexico and had the potential for grow into a tropical storm.

That potential seems like it is being realized. The National Hurricane Center says wannabe Barry will almost certainly grow into Tropical Storm Barry by Thursday and could easily increase further into a hurricane by the weekend.

The future path and strength of wannabe Barry is wicked uncertain, but early indications are it will move west over the northern Gulf of Mexico, then turn north and make landfall somewhere west of New Orleans.

If that happens, New Orleans would get the worst of the storm surge, which is water pushed ashore by a storm.

That's bad enough for low lying New Orleans. However, under normal circumstances, a storm surge being pushed northward up the Mississippi River by the city wouldn't be that big of a deal, as a levee system would protect the area.

Hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico usually hit later in the year, when the Mississippi River is typically pretty low. The levee system around New Orleans protects the city unless the water gets more than 20 feet deep.

So if a storm surge increases the water level in the river from, say, five feet to 10 feet, the city and its levees can handle it.

Here's the problem: Wannabe Barry is gettting going early in the season, so the Mississippi River is higher than it would be in say, September, the height of hurricane season.  Tropical storms and hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico aren't too off the charts weird in July, but it's still a bit unusual for things to be cranking this early.

The real trouble is the Mississippi River is very, very high from all the epic rains that fell upstream in the Midwest between March and June. So the water is now at around 16 feet, which is just a little below flood stage. A storm surge from wannabe Barry could push the water up over 20 feet, which would overtop levees and potentially give us Katrina all over again.

Another levee system that kept the waters of the Gulf of Mexico out of New Orleans led to the Katrina calamity of 2005. This potential mess would be different, as the water would be from the river, not the Gulf.

Of course, this is all a big maybe at this point. Maybe the surge won't be that big. Maybe Barry won't get very strong. Maybe Barry's path will take a turn so that New Orleans need not worry about anything.

Some forecasts say the unusually high water temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico might prompt Wannabe Barry to grow much more intense than current estimates. Winds in the upper atmosphere over the northern Gulf of Mexico will also become lighter, another sign that this could get pretty big pretty fast.

On the other hand, there the winds in the upper atmosphere might be stronger than forecast, or there could be intrusions of dry air, or wannabe Barry could travel closer to land during its formative stages, all of which could hobble this storm and make it not that much of  a powerhouse.

The track of the storm, which will be key on who gets the worst of it, is still a wild card, too. Nobody is sure where this thing will go.  

Yesterday, when flood forecasts put the storm surge flood expectations at 19 feet, not 20 feet, officials were sanguine about everything. Even at 20 feet, workers can reinforce levees and close flood gates to stave off flooding.

All this means that another catastrophic flood in the New Orleans area is not a done deal. At all. But it's enough to make me and a whole bunch of other people worried.

Plus, this morning's flood was no walk in the park. There's lots of damage in and around New Orleans from today's inundation. We can all hope that this turns out to be the worst of it.

As anybody in Nebraska, or California, or Washington DC or Kansas or Oklahoma or Ontario or Quebec can tell you, we've had enough flooding disasters lately.

Will A Tropical Storm With An Origin Over Tennessee Form In Gulf Of Mexico?

The National Hurricane Center is telling us there's a decent chance that Tropical Storm Barry could form in the Gulf of Mexico this week.

This computer model shows the chances of a tropical storm
over any shaded area between now and July 21. Note
this is just ONE computer model and there is a lot of
uncertainty over whether Tropical Storm Barry
will form in the Gulf of Mexico. Take this
map with a giant grain of salt. 

That fact isn't all that unusual. Tropical storms do form pretty often this early in the hurricane season.

Water in the  Gulf of Mexico is easily warm enough to support a tropical system. This type of storm needs very warm water to survive.

The origins of wannabe Tropical Storm Barry seem a bit unusual. But it's also the type of thing that happens occasionally. I should back up and explain.

An area of low pressure, really just a lame swirl of showers and thunderstorms, has been meandering slowly from western Tennessee down toward the Southeast.

This little system is not impressive, and this morning, had few showers associated with it. During the afternoons and evenings, this system has been popping up some pretty good thunderstorms in the South

However, sometimes, it doesn't take much to set up a tropical storm, or at least the potential for one. This weak little stormish thing is forecast to sink south into the Gulf of Mexico later this week.

There, it will start to feed off the warm Gulf of Mexico water and perhaps develop into a tropical storm. It's already got some spin to it, which could also help its development. The National Hurricane  Center gives this a 70 percent chance of forming into a tropical storm within the next five days or so.

This all goes to prove that a tropical storm does not need to have its origins in the tropics, although most tropical storms and hurricanes have their beginnings over tropical ocean waters.

Still, wannabe Barry isn't all that unusual. Sometimes, a cold front will drop into the Gulf of Mexico and then stall. A few days later, a tropical storm or hurricane pops out of the stalled front.

If wannabe Barry forms, nobody is really sure where it will go. It does pose the risk of dumping very heavy rain somewhere along the Gulf Coast of the United States. Time will tell.