Rainfall reading one step closer to becoming new official state record

Heavy rains from the remnants of Tropical Storm Arthur left many areas in Avoyelles Parish flooded. The Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness calls it a "1,000-year flood." Photo credit: Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries

Last Thursday’s torrential rainfall in Avoyelles Parish is one step closer to being an official state record.

This is based on information from a person near Cottonport who’s a volunteer observer with the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail and Snow Network.

“The day of event, we actually got the report around 4:30 p.m. that the gentleman that measured it had 29.06 inches of rain, and most of that occurred in less than 12 hours,” says Jonathan Brazzell, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

Brazzell is among a team of meteorologists, along with Louisiana State Climatologist Jay Grymes, who visited the volunteer as part of the procedure in verifying the measurement.

“We had to go visit with the guy, talk to him, let him tell his process of how he measured it, (and) do a sighting on the gauge,” says Brazzell.

Brazzell says after doing so, the team was convinced that the volunteer’s reading of 29.06 inches was valid.

“The last step in the process is, we have to write a report and send it to the National Centers for Environmental Information,” says Brazzell; “and if they approve it, it will become official.”

Once it becomes official, it would annihilate the previous record of 22 inches, set in Hackberry on August 29th, 1962.

Brazzell says there are indications that some areas got even more than 29.06 inches.

“There (are) even radar estimates that just to the east of where this site’s located, that they could have potentially had around 30 inches,” Brazzell says.

To put those numbers in perspective – those areas of Avoyelles Parish got seven times more rainfall in 12 hours than what the Las Vegas metropolitan area gets in one year (4.2 inches on average, according to data collected from 1991 to 2020 for the U.S. National Centers for Environmental Information).