NEW ORLEANS – The South will have a soggy start to 2024 with a wet weather pattern setting up over the Gulf Coast states, bringing heavy rain and the potential for flash flooding for Texas early in the week and down to Central Florida by midweek.
A parade of low-pressure systems marching across the U.S. will bring a buffet of active weather from rain to snow across the country. In the South, a system moving over the Gulf states will bring heavy rain to drought-stricken areas needing moisture. However, a lot of rain in a short period will be hard for the dry soil to absorb and may lead to flash flooding.
For the first week of the new year, the FOX Forecast Center is targeting a rain event to begin in South Texas as an area of low pressure begins to take shape. Between Monday and Wednesday, heavy rain will dominate this weather setup from Houston in Texas to Pensacola in Florida.
Cities, including Houston and Galveston in Texas, are looking at a wet day on Tuesday. Up to 1 inch of rain is forecast for South Texas, with higher amounts of up to 2 inches in isolated areas, including near Corpus Christi.
On Wednesday, the primary concerns for flooding will be concentrated in Louisiana.
“The energy from the West Coast, that low, tracks into the northern Gulf of Mexico, and it kind of gets its second life, and this warm front is going to be drifted right along the I-10 corridor, shaking up those showers from Lake Charles to New Orleans all the way up through Birmingham, Alabama,” FOX Weather Meteorologist Jane Minar said.
By Wednesday, the area of low pressure will continue its journey east and be located off the coast of New Orleans in Louisiana by early morning. With this shift, the flash flooding threat will extend over a greater area from Lake Charles, Louisiana, down to Tampa, Florida.
Heavy rain is forecast in Shreveport, Alexandria and Baton Rouge in Louisiana and Gulf Port, Mississippi, on Wednesday, with totals between 1 and 2 inches forecast.
“It’s going to be real soggy on the Gulf Coast, central Gulf Coast, as we go into the middle part of the week,” Minar said.
With the surge of moisture across multiple regions facing drought, the threat of flash flooding is possible through Thursday from southwest Louisiana to Southwest Florida.
SATELLITE IMAGES GIVE UNIQUE PERSPECTIVE OF DISASTERS FROM SPACE IN 2023
The South is under various stages of drought, including exceptional drought in parts of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. These areas are in need of moisture, including New Orleans, where the rainfall totals for this time of year are 16 inches below normal.
“It is going to take a number of storms, not just one, to remove the drought that has unfortunately plagued this area,” Minar said.