A tropical rainstorm brewing in the Gulf is projected to make landfall in Louisiana on Thursday of this week. The state faces a significant flood threat from the approaching storm.

Louisiana

Meteorologists are closely monitoring a tropical rainstorm in the Gulf of Mexico that is expected to make landfall in Louisiana. The storm's low-level and mid-level centers have become detached due to wind shear, which has limited its intensification so far. However, if the storm's low-level center moves over the warm waters of the Gulf and aligns with the mid-level center, it could strengthen into a tropical depression or tropical storm before reaching Louisiana.

Regardless of its classification, the system is forecast to bring significant rainfall to southern Louisiana, with amounts ranging from four to eight inches and potentially higher in localized areas. The primary concern is the risk of flooding, as the storm is expected to deliver heavy rain over the next several days.

Tropical rainstorm eyeing Louisiana bringing major flood threat

Meteorologist Alex da Silva and Alex, our tropical rainstorm, we've been tracking it, went across Florida yesterday and the question we had is what would it look like on the other side of the Florida peninsula? And we got the answer late last night and this morning, not very good. Yeah, well what happened was the low-level center and the mid-level center became detached from one another because of all that wind shear coming in from the northeast. So what happened was the low-level center ended up migrating a little bit further north. The mid-level center stayed a little bit further south. So right now, taking a look at the radar, where's the low-level center? It's actually just west of Tallahassee. You can see a little bit of a spin there just west of Tallahassee, but no thunderstorms really associated with it. The mid-level center, I think, is just off the coast to the south. So if these are not coupled with each other, if they're not what we call vertically stacked, intensification will not occur. It is interesting to keep an eye on that convection or on the infrared satellite picture, the red showing you cold cloud tops, which means they're high up in the atmosphere, which means you have thunderstorms. If that can stay persistent, that can change where the center of circulation in the low levels is located. Yeah, it can do one of two things. One, if there's a lot of convection to the south over the gulf there, it can actually help to pull that low-level center down. And then once that meets up with the mid-level center, then you can see some intensification. The other option is that the low-level center kind of just dissipates, and you actually get a new low-level center to form underneath all of that convection. So we're going to have to watch this throughout the afternoon and into the overnight. If that convection can sustain itself, if those thunderstorms can really sustain themselves over the northern gulf, we could see a new low-level center or that same center get pulled to the south. And that would be a game-changer, Alex, because right now with that center of circulation over land, the odds of this becoming a tropical storm are pretty low. But if it could recenter itself under that convection, it has a lot of warm water to work with. Yeah, we'd have a little bit of a better shot. Again, we look for about 80 degrees Fahrenheit for ideal water temperatures for tropical systems, and this is going to be in the middle 80s. So plenty of warm water to work with. If this low can get away from the coast a little bit, we could see that development into that tropical depression or even potentially a tropical storm. Because the wind shear is light. It's out of the east northeast, but it is light not only today, but as we go through tonight and Thursday. And like if you add it all up, the warm water, the light wind shear, that's on the positive ledger, so to speak, for tropical formation. But right now there's too many negatives to believe that this would become a tropical storm. Yeah, right now the circulation is tilted like we just talked about. That's what it means when we have a low-level center and a mid-level center detached from one another. Essentially it's tilted. The circulation essentially is tilted as you go up into the atmosphere, and the system will not be able to strengthen if this is the case. It's too close to land right now. If you can, again, pull that low-level center offshore or develop a new one, then you can start to really get that intensification. Now, we don't expect this to blow up into a hurricane or anything like that, but gradual slow intensification could take this up to a tropical depression or a tropical storm before it makes landfall in Louisiana around midday or so tomorrow. Yeah, let's take a look at the eye path there with the steering flow continuing to coming out of the east southeast. We haven't changed our eye path and we haven't changed the intensity. We are forecasting a tropical depression right before landfall here, but usually these systems like to tighten up at the last second, and that's the concern. Yeah, it is. Again, plenty of warm water to work with, and we could see a situation where, you know, as it's moving onshore, maybe they, you know, maybe we have a declaration of a tropical depression or tropical storm. But at the end of the day, I don't really think it matters all that much. This is going to be bringing a lot of rainfall regardless of what the classification at the end of the day is. Expect a lot of rain across southern Louisiana over the next couple of days, and it's going to start later on this afternoon. We could be seeing rainfall amounts of four to eight inches, and I'm concerned, especially if this really starts to develop, we could see rainfall amounts of a foot or even a little bit more in localized spots.

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