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:

Hurricane Michael A Big Threat To Florida Panhandle

Here's the projected path of soon-to-be Hurricane Michael
at least as of this morning. 

UPDATE 11 AM MONDAY

The National Hurricane Center says Michael, as expected, is now a hurricane. The 11 a.m. update has it at 75 mph.

PREVIOUS DISCUSSION:

OK, the headline in this post is temporarily inaccurate.

As of this writing early Monday morning, Tropical Storm Michael was not yet a hurricane. But it extremely likely will be by later today, and it's a big threat to the Florida Panhandle.

This storm developed more quickly and more robustly than expected. Early yesterday morning it was a sloppy mess of a tropical depression, with top winds of just 30 mph. Yawn.

Forecasters thought at first it wouldn't strenghten too quickly, because upper level winds were preventing it from organizing. They figured it would get into the Gulf of Mexico, then rev up.

Nope, by the end of the day Sunday, Tropical Storm Michael had top winds of 60 mph, despite the high upper level winds, called wind shear, that were trying to rip the storm apart.

By this morning, top winds in Michael had increased to 70 mph. As Michael moves north into the Gulf of Mexico, the wind shear is expected to lessen, and the storm will be moving over very warm water.

That's a recipe for a very fast increase in intensity, and Michael could be a very dangerous hurricane by the time it reaches the Florida Panhandle late Wednesday night or early Thursday morning. By this time it could be a Category 2 or 3 hurricane, with top sustained winds of 110 to 125 mph.

All that said, meteorologists and hurricane experts have gotten a lot better in recent years in predicting the track of hurricanes, but not so good at predicting a hurricane's strength.

That's not a slap or insult at the National Hurricane Center or any other meterologist. It's just that the science isn't there yet. We humans have not completely figured out the ins and outs of why or when a hurricane will strengthen or weaken.

All this means is that people in the Florida Panhandle can expect anything from a gusty storm that causes some damage to a hurricane with major damage.

The hurricane will move inland and the winds will quickly weaken during the day Thursday. It will move through the southeast, and go over or near the flood disaster zone in the Carolinas, left behind by Hurricane Florence.

Michael, or its remains will dump heavy rain on the Carolinas, which of course is really bad. The good news is that Michael, unlike stalled Florence, will zip right through, so it won't have the opportunity to dump heavy rain over the course of many days. It will pour during many hours, just not many days.

By the way, Michael won't affect us here in Vermont. It will be too far south. It'll rain here Thursday, but that will be because a cold front will be approaching, then passing through.

REMEMBER HURRICANE LESLIE?

Way back at the end of September, one of my blog posts mentioned the formation of Hurricane Leslie, way out over the central Atlantic.

Believe it or not, all this time later, Leslie is still there, alternating between tropical storm force and hurricane force, as its top winds fluctuated above and below 75 mph. Right now it's a tropical storm, with top winds of around 50 mph

It looks like Leslie will finally get moving, moving southeast, then east, then northeast across the central and eastern Atlantic Ocean.  It was over cool-ish waters this morning, which is preventing it from getting stronger, but soon it will move over warmer waters, and the National Hurricane Center thinks Leslie will become a hurricane again. 

Leslie could threaten Portugal and Spain toward next weekend. By then, Leslie will likely be converting itselt from a hurricane to a regular storm, albeit a strong and windy one. That's something those two countries need to keep an eye on.

HURRICANE SERGIO'S WET U-TURN

Meanwhile, out in the eastern Pacific Ocean, Hurricane Sergio last week was heading harmlessly westward, where it would have encountered colder water and died. But then it did a U-Turn, and is heading toward Baja California.

It will have greatly weakened by the time it gets there, but it will probably end of pushing another surge of very odd, wet weather into the Desert Southwest.

That's bad, because the remains of Hurricane Rose set up lots of flash flooding in that region last week, especially in Arizona.

The Southwestern deserts are now oddly wet, so Sergio could set them up for a lot more flooding. Stay tuned on that one.

SPEAKING OF FLOODING....

There's a big risk of flash flooding today and tomorrow in a broad swath in the middle of the nation from western and central Texas all the way up to southern Minnesota and Wisconsin.

A nearlh stalled weather front is dumping heavy rain in the region. Today, the biggest threat of flash flooding is in parts of Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas, where the National Weather Service says there is a high risk of possibly life threatening flash flooding.

This region has been plagued by heavy rain for many weeks, and there have been repeated flash flood. This could be the worst round het in the three states I mentioned. We'll follow the news today and tomorrow to see where this goes.

New Orleans Next On Hurricane Hit List?

There's good agreement among computer forecasting
models that Nate will come ashore over or near
southeastern Louisiana, but the wild card is
how strong it will be when it gets there. 

The next American city to get slammed in this terrible hurricane season of 2017 might be New Orleans.

Hurricane watches are now up for this weekend along the Louisiana and Mississippi coasts, including the city of New Orleans as Tropical Storm Nate gets its act together in the western Caribbean Sea today.

It's inevitable that Nate will hit the United States somewhere along the Gulf Coast over the weekend, but there are big questions on the exact path and especially the strength of Nate once it reaches the U.S.

Maximum sustained winds with Nate were 45 mph early this morning, which isn't too intense, but the storm should strengthen fairly rapidly over very warm waters north of Nicaragua today.

Nate will head north, and how the storm interacts with land when it passes over or near Mexico's Yucatan peninsula tonight will greatly determine how fierce a storm Nate will be once it reaches the United States.

If the land interaction seriously disrupts Nate's core, it won't have time to get its act together and, in a best case scenario, not even get to full hurricane strength.  However, if Nate stays organized, or somehow misses the Yucatan altogether, it could strengthen rapidly into a dangerous powerhouse.

Hurricane forecasters are generally better at predicted a hurricane's path than they are at pinpointing its future strength. That's the nature of the science.

Right now, the National Hurricane Center is going with a middle of the road approach, and predicts a Category 1 Nate with 80 mph winds when it comes ashore.

After dealing with Category 4 and 5 hurricanes this year, Category 1 doesn't seem so bad, yet it is. Up to a foot of rain might fall along the Gulf Coast in the path of Nate, and storm surges will very likely batter the coastline.

The New Orleans water pumping system, which pushes water out of the low lying city during storms, is still not fully functional after a very damaging August 5 flood there. So more flooding is very possible.

One hopeful piece of news is that Nate will be moving right along, so it won't rain heavily in New Orleans or elsewhere for a long time. It won't be like Hurricane Harvey, which pretty much stalled out over East Texas for days, which, as we all remember, caused immense floods.