On Wednesday morning, severe thunderstorms flooded New Orleans streets and causing travel to be disrupted by huge traffic. The storm raised the weather concern, even more, worse prompting tornado warnings.
It is expected that there might be a possible hurricane that may possibly hit the Gulf Coast and raise the Mississippi River to the edge of the city’s shielding levees. The flooding happened as a steeping tropical system, which may soon turn out to be Tropical Storm Barry, collected strength over the Gulf of Mexico strengthen into a hurricane by the weekend.
The system was estimated to turn into a tropical depression by Thursday morning, a tropical storm by Thursday night as well as a hurricane late Friday, as per to the National Hurricane Center.
The system was expected to be titled Barry, and it would be the following named Atlantic storm this year.
On Wednesday, it had extreme continued winds of 30 mph, as of 11 p.m. ET according to the hurricane center. Tropical storms have maximum nonstop winds of at least 39 mph.
The system’s center was sited around 120 miles southeast of the gateway of the Mississippi River, the hurricane center said. It was moving towards the west-southwest at 9 mph.
One by one thunderstorm linked with the system extended far out in into the Gulf and shattered New Orleans, where more than three-hour period of rain fell as much as 7 inches on Wednesday morning, as per to forecasters statement. Mississippi, as well as Texas, were also at risk of heavy rains.
The streets in New Orleans turned out to be into small, swift rivers that upturned garbage cans as well as picked up pieces of floating wood. The water level in the streets was up to the doors of a lot of cars. There were many vehicles which were abandoned.
Alexandra Cranford, who is a meteorologist with CBS affiliate WWL-TV, stated in a statement that it was the worst of the rain over for Wednesday. She also added by saying that some of the scattered rain is also likely to happen across the city.
The officials of New Orleans city along with those with the National Weather Service advised the local residents in order to stay off the roads and try to get to the higher ground if they come across flooding.
Jake Sojda, who is an AccuWeather Meteorologist said in a statement, “Heavy downpours will still be a threat over the coming days as the budding tropical system moves by just off of the coast to the south,”
“This weekend looks to carry the most significant flooding threat for southern Louisiana, as what is expected to be Hurricane Barry by that time makes landfall in southwestern Louisiana,” Sojda further said.
He added, “Areas to the east of the landfall point are expected to see the heaviest rain this weekend, with 20-plus inches possible in spots. This threat includes New Orleans.”
In spite of the tornado warnings that continued well into the afternoon, no confirmed tornadoes were reported after that. On the other hand, people captured as well as posted some of the images of an apparent waterspout to social media which was formed over Lake Pontchartrain and wrecked a home.
