Over a foot of rain fell over parts of Lake Charles and Baton Rouge yesterday as a result of a slow-moving storm system. State Climatologist Barry Keim says Lake Charles is once again dealing with storm damage.
“There was a measurement of 17.69 inches in Lake Charles and there were several other stations across that region that had 12 inches for example the Lake Charles air port, and they have hundreds of houses along that region in southwest Louisiana that flooded.”
In the Baton Rouge area, nearly 15 inches of rain fell in Gonzales and more heavy rainfall is expected through Thursday. Keim says warm air off the Gulf of Mexico is colliding with the upper atmosphere to produce strong thunderstorms capable of dumping a lot of water…
“We’re just getting one after another just falling behind each other and hitting the same areas over and over again.”
Keim says Louisiana has seen its share of major flood events in May. He says the two that come to mind are the May 3rd flood in 1978 in New Orleans and the May 8th to 10th 1995 flood in Slidell.
“Those are two events that a lot of people remember because we had really high rainfall events but something about the month of May that seems to bring the ingredients together for these kinds of events.”
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