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| 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 |
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.
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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:
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