Flood threat continues into at least Thursday

BATON ROUGE, La. (WAFB) - The Baton Rouge area saw a nice break from the persistent rain Tuesday afternoon thanks to an influx of drier air. But rain bands will be returning by the evening and overnight. Rain coverage Wednesday will be less persistent and more of an off and on pattern thanks to the aforementioned drier air.

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Unfortunately, that doesn’t lessen the overall flood threat. Embedded within these passing rain bands will be pockets of heavy rain. The forecast for excessive rainfall from the Weather Prediction Center calls for a Moderate Risk (3 out of 4) for a large portion of the local area. The Weather Prediction Center also has additional forecast rainfall amounts through the weekend of 4-7″ across the Baton Rouge area.

Off and on showers and a few t-storms will continue to threaten the area until Nicholas fizzles out completely or passes to our east. Neither is likely to occur before Friday. Much of the additional rainfall being forecast will occur through Thursday. That would put storm totals for most around 4-6″ with localized spots receiving as much as 8-10″. Unfortunately, we don’t have the forecast accuracy to pinpoint where these bullseyes will occur. Areas within the 4-6″ rainfall totals will experience localized nuisance flooding of low lying, poorly drained areas. The more isolated locations with 8-10″ could experience flash flooding of personal property.

The First Alert Storm Team continues to monitor river levels. At this time reliable forecasts from the Lower Mississippi River Forecast Center are not available. Residents along area rivers will continue to see climbing water levels in the coming days. We expect many sites will go above flood stage, but likely stay in minor flood. That means we will come nowhere near August 2016 flood levels on our area rivers.

The threat for severe weather remains low. The eastern fringe of the WAFB viewing area will be under a Marginal Risk for isolated, brief tornadoes Wednesday morning into early Thursday morning.

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