Unfortunately, with the sun rising over the Louisiana area, the next few hours will bring some grim photos and tragic news. The entire city of New Orleans has been out of power (and probably will be for some time) since late last night, and heavy rain bands set up over the area causing severe flooding and stressing levees in the area. Hopefully the reports I read late last night are exaggerated.
We obviously will not experience anything like the Gulf coast, but the remnants of Ida are expected to get caught up in a stalled front Wednesday over our area. As a result, heavy rain is expected late Wednesday and during the overnight hours into early Thursday. Right now, anywhere from 2-4″ of rain is expected with isolated areas of around 6 inches. That will certainly cause flash flooding concerns during those times. As far as winds are concerned, right now gusts of up to 30 mph are expected, especially in the higher terrain, but that needs to be monitored and the NWS will update as we get closer. Either way, much of our area has received above average rain over the past month, so the combination of more rain and gusty winds could result in some downed trees.
I’ll update what the model runs show periodically.
The Weather Mill 