Tropical rainstorm nears Louisiana coast

Storm chaser Aaron Rigsby joined AccuWeather Early live from New Orleans as a tropical rainstorm neared the Louisiana coast.

Transcript

00:00our coverage continues right now with storm chaser aaron rigsby he's live in new orleans

00:04louisiana and aaron i mean it's a tropical rainstorm right and uh it's probably not going

00:10to be depression but the one thing i think you you have to be feeling is the humidity

00:15seems like it is just sky high right now yeah you got that guy right guys yesterday there was even

00:23a couple of the uh metars that measure that dew point that was anywhere upwards of 79 degrees

00:29that's a 79 degree dew point that's not the temperature outside that is the dew point which

00:33is just a muggy mess and that oftentimes happens with these tropical systems because it's just

00:39sending such a big surge of moisture northward into these areas and that's part of been what's the

00:45what's part of been the problem with all of this rainfall that is not only already fallen but still

00:50continue to forecast to fall now here in new orleans it's been relatively tame all things considered as

00:55far as the flooding aspect goes there were some heavy thunderstorms that moved through last night

00:59there was some really big burst of downpours a little bit further east of here that caused some

01:03slowdowns on the highways but today is going to be a different story a little bit further to the west

01:08and now areas like alexandria morgan city potentially up into baton rouge they could see anywhere from

01:15another three to four inches of rainfall just today alone where some of that heavier rain has set up

01:20and is nearly stationary as it kind of pivots around this tropical rainstorm that we've been

01:24talking about and it could continue into friday as well a little bit further inland into louisiana so

01:30the game plan today wake up in new orleans get some of the storms that roll through here and make my

01:35way west for that flash flood threat that's going to be in morgan city in the lafayette area

01:38erin it seems like people have been pretty prepared i believe it was your drone video showing

01:43cars kind of line up are they getting sandbags

01:45that's absolutely correct you know i've covered multiple flash flooding events in the new orleans

01:52area as well so that was honestly a refreshing sight to see that despite this not having a name

01:56that folks were taking the storm very seriously they weren't taking any chances even if the rainfall

02:01doesn't necessarily fall over their location a lot of these low-line areas through here are very

02:06vulnerable i've been here during multiple flash flood emergencies and have seen some of the

02:10neighborhoods that were prepping with these sandbags underwater so it's nice to see folks

02:15not taking any chances with this tropical rainstorm and taking those necessary preparations ahead of

02:20that flash flood threat and really quick i don't know if you can answer this i would assume this

02:24is free of charge and also is there a limit to the amount of sandbags that people do uh receive

02:30yeah guys so there was no limit as at the the place that a couple locations that i went to now if

02:37this was a more widespread event i do believe that the sandbag number would be six but a lot of the

02:42volunteers that did show up they had bags ready to go for folks to fill up pretty much the only thing

02:47that they had to bring were their shovels they would come in as soon as they start to get a little

02:51bit low refill that sand and have it ready for the next folks and i believe that was from the hours of

02:5610 a.m to 1 p.m yesterday and i do believe it continues today in between the rainfall amounts that

03:01we're going to be seeing today as well well a lot of people forget a lot of the city of new orleans

03:06is uh is very low-lying uh areas so it's it's a it's a city that's prone to flooding all right

03:14aaron rigsby storm chaser we appreciate you being out there and we love to hear that a lot of people

03:18are getting prepared and taking things seriously here uh some of louisiana's first impacts from this

03:23tropical season all right we'll check