Blind Candidates:
December rain has already set a record for New Orleans
By Mark Schleifstein, The Times-Picayune
December 15, 2009, 8:42PM
A car is partially submerged in a ditch at the entrance to the Folgers plant on Old Gentilly Road in eastern New Orleans on Tuesday. More rain has fallen in the month of December than any previously recorded month, according to the gauge at Louis Armstrong International Airport.
Toad chokers, frog stranglers, rains of biblical proportions.
Whatever you call them, there's about to be a break in the dank, drenching, record-setting rainy days of December, according to forecasters in the Slidell office of the National Weather Service.
Unfortunately, the break will be brief.
The dreaded "flash flood watch" was canceled Tuesday at 6 p.m., as a strong cold front began an overnight push through the New Orleans area. That means Wednesday will be dry, with temperatures in the mid-40s Wednesday morning, rising only to about 60 in the afternoon, said meteorologist Michael Koziara.
The cold front will stall in the central Gulf of Mexico, and yet another low-pressure system will form from its remains, Koziara said. It will track just off Louisiana's coastline as it moves east Thursday night and Friday, bringing with it a chance of 1/2 to 1 inch of rain.
In its wake, expect a handful of cool, dry days, with lows remaining in the lower 40s, and highs rarely getting out of the mid-50s through Sunday. A second cold front Monday night will bring a chance of rain and then continued cool, dry conditions for several days, he said.
The two-week reign of sogginess that smacked the New Orleans area has broken just about every rainfall record in Louisiana's climate book, said Barry Keim, state climatologist.
"It is truly amazing," he said. "The wettest December on record prior to this month was 10.77 inches in 1967. The wettest month ever recorded (at Louis Armstrong International Airport, location of the National Weather Service's rain gauge of record for New Orleans) was 21.18 inches in May 1995."
As of 6 p.m. Tuesday, 22.54 inches had fallen at the airport during December, more than a third of an average year's rainfall. And it's still only Dec. 16.
Blame a growing, moderately energized El Nino, Keim said. The weather pattern named for the baby Jesus is marked by warmer-than-normal sea temperatures in the eastern Pacific Ocean that affect the atmosphere as it streams above the water.
"The classic El Nino signature is to have an enhancement of Gulf storms in the wintertime, and that's how this has been playing out," Keim said. Low-pressure systems form in the Gulf and then track along or across the state's coastline.
El Nino causes the subtropical jet stream, an always-moving river of air anchored 10,000 feet to 15,000 feet above the surface, to become more energized and to slip to the south from its normal seasonal position midway across North America, Keim said.
"The speed of the air in the jet stream pulls up moisture from the Gulf, like a vacuum cleaner," he said. That lowers pressure at the surface, setting up the perfect conditions that have created long lines of thunderstorms that have repeatedly crossed the New Orleans area this month.
Expect El Nino to trigger similar conditions into spring, Keim said.
Around the region, local officials spent most of Tuesday dealing with the more than 7 inches of rain that fell in some areas overnight Monday and early Tuesday.
At least 35 homes were flooded in St. Charles Parish between Saturday and Tuesday in Luling, Paradis and Boutte. Many of the homes were in low-lying subdivisions where residents remember the floods of 1989 and 1995 with little fondness.
A team of employees from the Orleans Levee District make an assembly line as they pile sandbags on Bayou St. John near the intersection of Lafitte Avenue and North Jefferson Davis Parkway near the Mid-City post office in New Orleans. They used about 500 bags to keep the bayou from overflowing on Tuesday.
St. Charles officials said 11 inches of rain fell in a 24-hour period between Monday and Tuesday. Parish public and parochial schools were closed in the face of widespread street flooding, and a Red Cross shelter was opened at the Eual J. Landry Alternative School next to the parish courthouse in Hahnville.
Schools are scheduled to resume classes today and holiday schedules for both systems will remain unchanged.
Neighboring St. John the Baptist Parish, which got hammered last week by a torrential downpour that led parish officials to declare an emergency, fared pretty well.
However, sandbags are available at the St. John Airport in Reserve for residents who need them.
In Kenner, about 3 inches of rain fell Tuesday between 5 a.m. and 7 a.m., flooding streets, Public Works Department Supervisor Kenny Melvin said. A half-dozen homes in south Kenner flooded, and there were sewage backups throughout the city.
A man wades through the flooded Worth Street in Old Kenner as heavy rains soaked the area on Tuesday.
Residents of homes on Salvador and Centanni roads in Old Kenner reported interior flooding, said Emile Lafourcade, the administration's spokesman. South Kenner, which has the oldest pipes in the city, also received the most rainfall, he said.
"You're dealing with smaller and older drainage pipes installed 50 and 60 years ago," Lafourcade said, and the city's sewerage system was not able to keep up. The aeration basin at the central treatment plant overflowed by midnight Monday, and excess treated sewage was diverted to drainage canals and Lake Pontchartrain, according to a City Hall news release.
On the West Bank, the Company Canal near Westwego was closed early Tuesday because of strong easterly winds and heavy rains, officials said.
A small tornado touched down Tuesday in southern Westwego at about 5 a.m.
Westwego Mayor John Shaddinger said residents south of the West Bank Expressway who live between Central Avenue and Victory Drive reported high winds and the peculiar "train sound" often heard during tornadoes. Shaddinger said several homes in that area were damaged.
The nine schools that make up the Algiers Charter Schools Association closed early Tuesday due to the threat of flooding.
About 5,000 homes and businesses throughout the area lost electricity for a few hours early Tuesday, said Entergy spokesman Morgan Stewart. Most were in the Gretna area.
In St. Tammany Parish, officials waited to see whether Tuesday's rainfall would add to floodwaters swelling several rivers and bayous. Warnings predicting minor flooding were issued by the National Weather Service.
The St. Bernard Parish Council's Tuesday night meeting was not expected to be disrupted by water that leaked through the slab beneath the council chambers, although carpet was pulled up from the floor.
One Chalmette church also had some water in it, and the parish Sheriff's Office opened its sandbagging site at the St. Bernard Port. About 50 residents took advantage of the free bags.
In New Orleans, high water in Bayou St. John Tuesday morning threatened to spill over into nearby streets. Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority- East workers put sandbags along the bayou's banks at Moss Street, but authority general manager Bob Turner said that even if the water spilled out, it would pour into the city's drainage system.
