Southeast US braces for life-threatening flooding

AccuWeather

AccuWeather's Jon Porter was live on the AccuWeather Network on April 3 to discuss the flooding threat in the southeastern U.S.

Transcript

00:00All right with that I want to bring in our chief meteorologist Jonathan Porter and you know John

00:06this is day one and I think things are going to get far worse especially Friday and Saturday but

00:13just to show you how moist this setup is take a look at the rainfall this has just been in the last

00:2024 hours from Memphis toward Nashville. Yeah this is bad news here Bernie because what this is doing

00:26is setting the stage we've already had rain amounts of four to six inches across the Nashville to

00:32Memphis back toward Little Rock Corridor so the ground is already getting saturated here and that

00:38means extra rounds of heavy rainfall which will be many in these areas the ground isn't going to

00:43be able to absorb it's going to run off and that's why we're talking about the risk for historic

00:47life-threatening flooding in these areas and Bernie we're concerned in some of these communities

00:51people may have lived in these communities for 25, 30, 40 years and you're going to see water

00:57in places high water rising water in places that you've never seen before given how serious this

01:03flooding threat is. John I hate to even say to this but this is what we would call a textbook

01:08setup for flooding rain everything that you look for every ingredient you look for for flooding

01:14rain not only do we have it we have it in spades let's start off with the simplest ingredient a

01:20stalled boundary which you never trust. You never trust it because what ends up happening is look at

01:26the sharp variation between cooler air to the north temperatures in the 50s in Oklahoma City

01:32and 80s to near 90 to the south and where that boundary sets up that's where you're going to

01:37have waves of rain running along it and it's right in that corridor from Arkansas to Tennessee and

01:42Kentucky that we're so concerned about. Now we're going to add another extra ingredient here and

01:47it's not good what we call an atmospheric river now we talk about them a lot along the east coast

01:53even a lot mostly along the west coast John but when you look at the moisture content the entire

01:57amount of moisture through the entire depth of the atmosphere a river of moisture goes from point A

02:03to point B point A being in the Caribbean point B across the mid-south look at that river coming

02:09northward. Look at that river and it's and with all these reds and yellows this is very focused

02:15tropical moisture a direct feed of tropical moisture from from the Caribbean. And there's

02:21the area John we've not changed this at all. No we've been highlighting this ahead of other

02:26sources so that with strong language so that people are aware of how significant a threat

02:31this will be and we're not talking about flash flooding in just one or two communities.

02:37This is that we could have significant flash flooding all the way from the corridor of

02:41southern Indiana downstate Illinois through the Ozarks of of southern Missouri and also across

02:49northern Arkansas and out toward Tennessee and portions of Kentucky as well so big problems here

02:55in terms of roadways that may be closed watch for and avoid rapidly rising water in these areas

03:00and in some communities we could be talking about receiving four months of typical rainfall in just

03:06a matter of five days. All right we talked about the air mass I want to throw you know what think

03:11about the air mass now is the gasoline now we have a couple of matches here because our upper low

03:16is back across the four corners area but what it's going to do is it's going to inject pieces

03:20out we already have one piece across Texas you can see all of the white and all of the green

03:27showing you the moisture in the middle upper part of the atmosphere there are the thunderstorms

03:31Oklahoma City toward Dallas and John let's play this forward here and while we are focusing

03:38on the flash flood threat we're not done I'm afraid with the tornado threat today.

03:44We are not you and I are both concerned at our team of 100 expert meteorologists here at AccuWeather

03:49that this corridor across southeast Arkansas watch for a few tornadoes and some of them could be

03:55strong later this afternoon you see that around six o'clock we're concerned because some of these

04:01are isolated cells those are the ones that can tend to produce tornadoes more readily and then

04:06otherwise a big heavy rain threat across a much wider area here those thunderstorms when they

04:11occur that's even more problematic for this flash flooding threat because that's when you get these

04:16really high rates of rainfall two inches per hour or more and that is what leads to that

04:21significant flash flooding concern. Watch that zone Memphis to Nashville John it just keeps coming

04:26keeps coming keeps coming keeps coming we're already getting the flatting in Nashville

04:30that's the concern you know John and then oh by the way oh by the way here comes the next storm in

04:36the west Texas that sets up the threat for tomorrow I want to go over these severe weather threats

04:41John and what I find just absolutely I'm going to say it's frightening is that the severe weather

04:47the next three days go over pretty much the same area beginning today. Yes there's that area that

04:55we're most concerned about across portions of south of southeast Arkansas over toward north

05:01Texas including the Dallas metro area and some risk further north as well. Now tomorrow's an

05:06interesting we had a big debate about this on map discussion there are those that in the office

05:11believe including me that tomorrow's a bigger day and that we may have to go into a high risk

05:17I'm concerned we could see one to two dozen tornadoes but there are others out on the floor

05:22John that are concerned that it may not reach that criteria. There's some conflicting parameters

05:29tomorrow but either way watch that corridor especially across ports of central Arkansas to

05:34northeast Texas southeast Oklahoma that's where there can be a greater risk for tornadoes. And

05:38there we go then on Saturday John we have added the high risk. Saturday looks like a bad day in

05:44terms of the tornado risk here across the south some of these could be particularly intense

05:49tornadoes especially across that same corridor from parts of Texas to Louisiana Mississippi and

05:55also southeast Arkansas once again a great time to download the AccuWeather app turn on push

06:00notifications receiving a warning there can save your life because we deliver those warnings on

06:05average faster than any other source. As we end the show I'm going to do something I never do I'm

06:08going to go backward there's a severe weather threat for Saturday there's the severe weather

06:14threat for Friday there's the severe weather threat for today they all overlap and that's

06:21why we're going to get the flooding stay with us.

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