If you live in East Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, or pretty much anywhere in the Mississippi Delta region we sure hope you built anark!We're on Day 3 of heavy rain and thunderstorms across this region with continued wet weather forecast until, at least, Saturday the 12th. Wouldn't be surprised to see some locations approaching 20'' of total rainfall as several more inches of rain are forecast to fall in areas that have already seen a foot of rain. This is causing dangerous, record flooding across the region with impacts likely to be felt for days to come.
Unlike the prolonged floodingwe saw in late-December along the Mississippi River, the heavy rain causing the flooding this time is farther south in the lower Mississippi Valley so the flooding won't be as long nor widespreadbecausethe swell of high water has only a short trip tothe Gulf of Mexico.
Speaking of flooding rain, a series of storm systems are beginning their march across northern California and will continue through early next week. These storms have the potential to dump near 7-10'' of rain in the Sierra Foothills, east of Sacramento, and at LEAST 4 to 5' of snow in the high country. Flood watches have been posted across northern California, which by the way, still has areas that are under an exceptional drought (the highest intensity of drought), so hopefully we can knock some of the drought down with these storm systems. To see which areas are under a flood watch on the maps to the left, simplyclick the pencil icon in the upper right-hand corner of the map and select "U.S. Watches/Warnings" under the Current set of options; this is also available on the Interactive Mapspage of the website.
The surge of above normal warmth continues across much of the eastern 2/3rds of the nation for the next 7 days, but thereafter we'll have to watch as a surge of colder air is forecast to sweep across the nation.
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