Isaac Pounding Gulf Coast

Hurricane Isaac has made landfall once already, moving over the Mississippi River delta shortly before 7:00 p.m. CDT August 28, but has since moved back out over the water. He is expected to make landfall again near Grand Isle, Louisiana later tonight.  Here is the radar image of Isaac as of 9:52 p.m. CDT tonight (August 28). 

Hurricane Isaac just off the coast of Louisiana, 9:52 p.m. CDT August 28

 

 

 Isaac is "just" a Category 1 storm with top winds of 80 mph. However, it is producing dangerous storm surge from the Mississippi River Delta eastward.  Isaac's slow movement means that the Gulf coast will deal with prolonged high winds and very heavy rain. The NWS Hydrometeorological Prediction Center's latest 5-day quantitative precipitation forecast paints an impressive amount of rain from the Gulf Coast northward through the southern half of the Midwest as Isaac moves slowly northwest inland and then turns north and northeast.

 

CoCoRaHS observers across the central and southeastern U.S. will be getting a lot of practice measuring rainfall the next several days. In much of the Midwest there could be more rain the last week of August than fell in all of June and July.  In my post on July 31 I suggested that the central U.S. would love to see a tropical system bring it's rain to drought stricken areas, but that it was probably a long shot. Maybe I should buy a lottery ticket!