Storm Surge/Tide — Southern Livingston Parish, Louisiana

2024-06-16 to 2024-06-26 · Southern Livingston Parish, Louisiana

Event narrative

Multiple days of high tides impacted the parish with some roads on the southern end of the parish inundated. The most impacted areas were along Highway 22, especially the town of Killian.

Wider weather episode

As a surface ridge nearby shifted off to the northeast during the 3rd weekend of June, light and variable winds became onshore and more steady state. By June 16th, the surface ridge shifted offshore into the Atlantic Ocean and a surface low pressure was developing as it crossed the Yucatan Peninsula. It was at this point that east to southeast winds increased to 15-20 knots across local coastal waters and didn't let up for several days. After just 12 to 18 hours of elevated winds, tides began to rise above where the should be. The surface low moving over the Yucatan gradually developed into Tropical Storm Alberto on June 19th. The storm slowly tracked westward across the Bay of Campeche, making landfall in Mexico on June 20th. At the same time, ridge over the western Atlantic had strengthened to 1030mb. The pressure gradient between the tropical storm and strong ridge in the Atlantic created a strong pressure gradient across the local area. Onshore winds peaking during this timeframe as well with winds roughly 25 to 35 knots and gusts upwards of 40 to 50 knots. Tides peaked in height around the 19th-20th as well, with many areas seeing levels roughly 2 to just over 3 feet above the average annual highest high tide. Most, if not all, coastal parishes of of LA were impacted with low lying roads inundated for at least a few days. Even as winds weakened around June 22nd, it took 3 to 4 more days for tides to subside in the tidal lakes. All in all, tides were above normal for 9 to just over 10 days.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1194716. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.