Flash Flood in Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana

Law enforcement observed water over the roadway resulting from heavy rainfall on Highway 495 in Cloutierville, but the water ran off rapidly.

A cluster of thunderstorms developed across Northern Louisiana during the afternoon on August 20th. As these thunderstorms and associated outflow boundaries moved south, they encountered increasing instability with temperatures in the upper 90s and dewpoints in the mid 70s, yielding 2500 J/kg MLCAPE. Despite the rather favorable thermodynamic environment, shear was quite weak. This weak shear resulted in very unorganized storms with strong outflows. Stronger cores supported the threat for microbursts, particularly where boundary collisions occurred. As a result, several thunderstorms became severe and produced damaging wind gusts along with an isolated occurrence of flash flooding.