Southern US flood risk to ensue as several inches of rain pour down

By Alex Sosnowski, AccuWeather senior meteorologist

A one-two punch from storms will elevate the risk of flooding in the short-term, while additional storms may keep the risk going in the long-term over parts of the south-central and southeastern United States.

A storm has already unleashed enough rain in several hours to trigger flash flooding in several parishes in southern Louisiana during Thursday.

Some locations, including Lake Charles, Louisiana, had received 5 inches of rain in a little over six hours, which prompted a flash flood emergency.

Even as this storm pushes eastward and winds down on Friday, a new storm will take shape over the Plains and begin to drift eastward this weekend into early next week.

"Like the storm into Friday, the new storm is likely to bring another dose of heavy rain to the South Central states and into part of the Southeast," according to AccuWeather Lead Long-Range Meteorologist Paul Pastelok.

The combination of the rainfall from two storms only a few days apart may be too much for area streams and rivers to handle.

Areas from southeastern Oklahoma and northeastern Texas to Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, part of Kentucky, northern and western Georgia, upstate South Carolina and western North Carolina can expect a general 3-6 inches of rain with an AccuWeather Local StormMax™ to 10 inches through next Tuesday.

The wet pattern from the two storms may be just getting started.

At the very least, some small streams will periodically flood and flooding in low-lying areas and in urban locations is likely.

"We expect a very active storm track from the Pacific Ocean to continue and that storm track will remain suppressed enough to the south to cause rounds of severe weather and above-average rainfall from portions of the South Central and Southeastern states through much of April," Pastelok said.

The anticipated wet pattern will increase the risk of reoccurring flooding over part of the South this spring.

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While many of the secondary rivers east of the Mississippi River in the South had receded or were in the process of receding following heavy rain from the winter, the pattern is likely to lead to new rises and the potential for moderate to major flooding in the weeks ahead.

This may include the Pearl, Tennessee and Alabama rivers.

Some rivers west of the Mississippi over the South Central states are also likely to experience problems from rising water and possibly more serious flooding.

Rivers at risk for significant rises in the pattern west of the Mississippi include the Arkansas, Red and Sabine.

This more southern storm track might be some good news for the northern tier of the Plains and Midwest, where heavy snow fell this winter and runoff from that snow was just now triggering flooding on its own.

Heavy rainfall on top of melting snow could have made matters worse for the northern tier, as it did in recent weeks over the central Plains.

The storms are still likely to track far enough to the north to aggravate flooding problems over the central Plains and middle Mississippi Valley.

The combination of rain in the South Central states and the middle part of the Mississippi basin can be enough to keep water levels running high on the lower portion of the Mississippi River for weeks.

Download the free AccuWeather app to see how wet your area is expected to be in the coming days.