Marine Weather and Tide Forecast for Gulfport, MS

FXUS64 KLIX 090555 AFDLIX

Area Forecast Discussion National Weather Service New Orleans LA 1155 PM CST Sun Dec 8 2024

New AVIATION

SHORT TERM
(This evening through Monday night)
Issued at 156 PM CST Sun Dec 8 2024

Tonight through Tuesday night, multiple round of rainfall are anticipated as a slow moving cold front progresses through the area. The first round is currently moving through the area with light to moderate rainfall and will persist through around 8-10p this evening. There looks to be a lull in the rainfall expected overnight tonight through around 10am tomorrow where some light rain is possible, but not much beyond that as the main forcing from round 1 moves off to the northeast. Some Gulf moisture acts as an impulse to fire off the lingering boundary from the system Monday from around 10a through 8p. This is the round that has the bulk of the heavy rainfall expected over the next several days.
Beyond Monday night, a couple more rounds of light to moderate stratiform rainfall will be possible, but exact timing is still quite uncertain as it depends on how rounds 1 and 2 pan out.

Generally for the event as a whole tonight through Tuesday morning, 1 to 3 inches of rainfall is expected with locally higher amounts of 2 to 4 inches likely. Additional rainfall is expected on Tuesday as well. We are outlooked in a Slight Risk for Heavy Rainfall for our entire southshore areas, northshore areas, and the MS coastal areas for Monday into Monday night. Since PW values are quite high (Above the 90th percentile) along with parallel flow aloft and slow- moving system, rainfall will likely be fairly efficient inside stronger storms. The main limiting factor will be the instability, which may be a little lacking. We have overcome low instability for flooding events in the past and recent trends in the models show decent/adequate instability around 500 J/kg. As a result, flash flooding and minor to moderate street flooding will be certainly possible, especially for vulnerable urban areas along where the axis of heaviest rainfall sets up (which in the models is anywhere from I-55 to Pearl River and east).

Predominantly, Houma, Thibodaux, and the New Orleans metro areas are of particular concern along with the MS Coastal towns/cities as these areas generally struggle to handle higher rainfall rates (1+"/hr rates). Additionally of note for this particular system, there is a localized higher concern for flash flooding for the rural areas in the MS Counties as well due to the antecedent drought conditions, newly hard packed soil due to recent cold conditions, and lower vegetation this time of year, all of which will act to enhance runoff and flooding concerns. So, these are all the areas that will be watched the most closely over the next couple of days. A Flood Watch has been issued due to the increased risk of flash flooding for the Southshore/northshore areas and MS Coastal Counties Monday morning 6a through noon on Tuesday. This may need to be extended depending on the conditions developing tomorrow. MSW
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