The first hurricane of the season, Hurricane Beryl, made landfall at 4 a.m Monday morning near Matagorda, Texas, with maximum sustained winds of 80 mph.
“Now that it’s moving inland, it’s beginning to weaken,” said Donald Jones, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Lake Charles office. “Winds are now down to 75 mph. It should be a rapid weakening trend.”
He said Beryl is expected to be downgraded to a tropical storm in the next few hours. Its remnants are now turning northeast. Beryl should be in Arkansas by Tuesday afternoon.
“As it does so, as it moves across east Texas, we’re going to be looking at quite a bit of rainfall,” he said. “It’ll turn into a tropical storm and eventually a depression or a remnant low and all of that rainfall is going to be moving across parts of east Texas and western Louisiana over the next 24 to 36 hours.”
Southwest Louisiana could experience a low-end flash flood risk as lingering rainbands associated with Beryl continue to produce periods of heavy rain.
“We’re expecting one of those rainbands to set up somewhere across either Southwest, southeast, maybe central Louisiana and linger,” Jones said. “Rainfall totals of 2 to 4 inches are expected across Southwest Louisiana today through Tuesday. Higher amounts will be possible in narrow areas should long duration of rainbands develop.”
A coastal flood warning is in effect for coastal parts of Cameron Parish; that means a surge of 1-3 feet is expected.
“It’s not out of the realm of possibility for tropical storm-force wind gusts in Southwest Louisiana, which is just outside the watch area,” Jones said.
There is a 5-9 percent chance of quick, spin-up tornado activity in Southwest Louisiana today. A tornado watch has been issued by the National Weather Service until 10 p.m. today in Allen, Beauregard, Calcasieu, Cameron and Jeff Davis parishes.
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