Following weeks of heavy rainfall certain locations across the state are close to reaching their average annual rainfall total before August. State Climatologist Barry Keim said are the current rate this could be a record-breaking year.
“New Orleans is already at 60.9 inches of rainfall and the average year has little over 63 so we’re already nipping at that annual total and we still have five and half months to go,” Keim said.
The southern half of the state has been hit the hardest with cities like Baton Rouge and New Orleans seeing an increase of 19.2 inches and 24.4 inches respectively while in Shreveport the increase has only been by 3.7 inches. Keim said that prior to march the rainfall level was below normal but the excessive number of fronts has changed everything.
“We’re getting a lot of these fronts that are actually pushing all the way through the region and stalling and hanging around for days on end and that’s basically what’s been happening for the last few days keeping us in this really an excessively wet pattern,” Keim said.
The severe drought occurring in the western part of the United States is related to the downpour in Louisiana. Keim said all the rain-producing weather systems are bypassing the west due to a large ridge but the pattern will do some shifting in the next few days.
“They should see some more rain in the western part of the country which should help them quite a bit with their incredible drought conditions and hopefully we can dry out a little bit,” Keim said.
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