TD 6 Continues to Develop; Where Were News Media during Louisiana Flood?

Tropical Depression Six formed on Tuesday evening in the remote waters of the Central Atlantic about 700 miles west of the Cabo Verde Islands. Satellite loops on Wednesday morning showed that TD 6 had a modest area of heavy thunderstorms that were not particularly vigorous, but the storm was well organized, with good low-level spiral banding. Wind shear was light, 5 - 10 knots, and sea surface temperatures (SSTs) were warm enough for development: 27°C (81°F). Water vapor satellite imagery showed that TD 6 was in a moist environment on its southern flank, but dry air from the Saharan Air Layer (SAL) was along the northern side of the storm, interfering with development. Overall, these conditions are favorable for some modest development.


Figure 1. Latest satellite image of TD 6.

Forecast for TD 6
Steering currents favor a northwesterly motion at about 10 - 12 mph for TD 6 the remainder of the week. This track will likely take the system too far to the north for it to be a long-range threat to the Lesser Antilles Islands, though we can’t rule out a threat to Bermuda yet. The 8 am EDT Wednesday run of the SHIPS model showed moderately favorable conditions for development through Friday, with wind shear light to moderate range, 5 - 15 knots, a moist atmosphere, and SSTs near 27°C (81°F.) In its 11:00 am EDT update on TD 6, the National Hurricane Center projected that the depression would become Tropical Storm Fiona later on Wednesday. However, beginning on Friday, the storm is expected to encounter a very dry air mass and high wind shear near 20 knots, which should cause weakening. The European model predicts that TD 6 will dissipate this weekend, which is certainly a possibility.

More African waves coming
A series of tropical waves will emerge from the coast of Africa during the next week, and we will have to watch these for development as they track westward to west-northwestward across the tropical Atlantic. The models have been inconsistent in their handling of the track and potential development of these waves over the past few days, though the Wednesday morning runs of the GFS and European models agreed that a tropical wave due to come off of Africa on Saturday might develop by early next week.


Figure 2. David McNeely (left) and Jason Schexnayder walk through a flooded street in Sorrento, LA, as an early-morning fog blankets the area on Wednesday, August 17, 2016. Image credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images.

Slow recovery and big questions in Louisiana as flood waters recede
As the immediate emergency subsides in southeast Louisiana, residents are dealing with a massive clean-up effort and wondering how the past weekend’s flooding turned out to be so disastrous. An estimated 40,000 homes have been damaged or destroyed by flooding, with 20,000 people rescued from high water and 10,000 in shelters, in what is likely to be a billion-dollar-plus disaster. Enormous rainfall was the obvious trigger, as detailed in our posts of the last several days. Even in a state as wet and flood-prone as Louisiana, some places are hit more regularly than others. Many of the areas flooded in this event had not been under water in living memory, which added to the shock and pain of this event.

A long-planned diversion project designed to channel water a few miles westward from the Comite River to the Mississippi River just north of Baton Rouge might have kept thousands of homes in the Baton Rouge area from flooding, as reported Tuesday in the Baton Rouge Advocate. The canal would have diverted water from the Comite before that river’s record crest had a chance to pass through northeast parts of the Baton Rouge area. In addition, since the Comite joins with the Amite River near hard-hit Denham Springs, the canal would have reduced major flooding there and downstream as well. Taxpayers in three parishes approved a property tax more than a decade ago to fund the canal, and some progress has been made, but state and federal funding to date has been insufficient to complete the project, according to the Advocate article. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has estimated that the canal would cost just over $200 million--which could end up on par with the component of damage that resulted from the canal’s absence. As was the case with Hurricane Katrina in 2005, delays in flood control ended up exacerbating the toll from flooding in the suffering of a state dealing with multiple other co-factors, including rising sea levels, a coastline plagued with subsidence, and a climate more prone to intense rainfall.


Figure 3. Historic flooding in Port Vincent, along the Amite River southeast of Baton Rouge, was captured on Sunday, August 14, in an aerial photography mission carried out by NOAA’s Remote Sensing Division. A useful NOAA website allows you to zoom in on a map of the hard-hit region and view additional photos. Mark Schleifstein, the award-winning environmental reporter from the New Orleans Times-Picayune, has compiled several science-oriented sources of flood imagery. Image credit: Courtesy NASA Earth Observatory.

Why did the flooding get so little national attention for days?
As floodwaters were spreading across southeast Louisiana, the emerging disaster got surprisingly little notice in U.S. news media. Although the Louisiana governor declared a state of emergency on Friday, the New York Times posted no staff-written articles on the crisis until Sunday evening, and it took until Tuesday for a Times reporter to reach the scene from New Orleans. “Many readers have expressed disappointment in the coverage,” said Times public editor Liz Spayd in a mea-culpa essay on Tuesday entitled “On Gulf Coast Flooding, The Times Is Late to the Scene.” In a Wednesday report titled “National media fiddle as Louisiana drowns,” Mike Scott from the New Orleans Times-Picayune highlighted the contrast between the huge amount of information and photos posted to social media during the flood (albeit much of it unvetted) with the lack of traditional coverage.

A whole host of factors led to a perfect storm of media inattention. Among the other events jostling for news coverage just this past weekend:
--the competition in Rio de Janeiro
--protests in Milwaukee
--the ongoing U.S. presidential race

Weekends are an increasingly challenging time to cover breaking news, especially during the peak vacation season of August. Newspaper and TV journalists across the U.S. have been hit with major job cuts over the last few years, leaving many newsrooms understaffed, as readers drop print subscriptions or cut the cable. On top of all this, the slow-moving low that triggered the Louisiana rains was not officially designated as a tropical cyclone and thus went unnamed. “The American public is somewhat conditioned to perceive a named or higher-category storm as more of a threat,” said Marshall Shephard (University of Georgia) in a thoughtful Forbes op-ed on Tuesday. Shepherd also notes the possible role of “flood fatigue” in the wake of many high-profile flash and river floods across the nation in recent months and years. Over the last 18 months, according to weather.com’s Jon Erdman, there have been 18 major flood events across the four-state region of Arkansas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and Texas. “The number, extremity, and widespread nature of flood events has been incredible in this region,” said Erdman.

Heavy rains shift to Texas
Residual moisture from the soggy, slow-moving upper low continues to produce heavy rain across parts of south Texas, where flash flood watches are in effect. The downpours have been fairly scattered and disorganized, reducing any potential for widespread flooding. CoCoRaHS maps show that several pockets of 3” - 6” rains developed near San Antonio and north of Austin in the 24-hour period ending at 7 am CDT Wednesday. Toward the coming weekend, the preexisting moisture will combine with a seasonally strong cool front to produce several days of heavy rain in a belt from southwest Texas into the Dallas-Fort Worth area.


Figure 4. Precipitation totals projected for the 5-day period from 12Z (8:00 am EDT) Wednesday, August 17, 2016, to 12Z Monday, August 22. Image credit: NOAA/NWS Weather Prediction Center.


Figure 5. Danielle Blount kisses her 3-month-old baby Ember as she feeds her while they wait to be evacuated by members of the Louisiana Army National Guard near Walker, LA, on Sunday, August 14, 2016, after heavy rains inundated the region. (AP Photo/Max Becherer)

Louisiana disaster survivors with disabilities need your support after historic flooding
The Portlight.org disaster relief charity, founded and staffed by members of the wunderground community, continues to respond to this past week's devastating floods in Louisiana. The disaster is particularly troublesome for a state that is still in recovery from major flooding just last March, and many resources are completely depleted because of the March flooding. That storm left more than 5,000 homes damaged or destroyed and cost $1.5 billion across a three-state area. With at least 40,000 homes damaged or destroyed, this week's flooding may end up being even more costly, according to insurance broker Aon Benfield. There is an urgent need for durable and consumable medical supplies as well as housing. Portlight will be working with the American Red Cross, local stakeholder organizations, and federal partners to respond to this historic flooding event. Your support is needed to make this happen! Please consider making a donation to Portlight's disaster relief fund at the portlight.org website to further their reach and response in the state of Louisiana. Thank you for any support you can offer!

We’ll have a post this afternoon on the July climate summary for Earth.

Bob Henson and Jeff Masters