Flash Flood — East Baton Rouge, Louisiana

2026-01-10 · near Essen, East Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Event narrative

Vehicles were stranded due to high water near Silo Drive in the Settlement at Willow Grove.

Wider weather episode

A very moist and weakly unstable airmass was in place across southeast Louisiana during the morning of January 10th. Local upper air sounding that morning showed a precipitable water value near 1.6 inches, well above the climatological 90th percentile for early January. A prefrontal convergence zone and nearly unidirectional flow supported bands of showers and thunderstorms moving northeast across the region. Within this environment, repeated rounds of moderate to heavy rainfall resulted in localized training of storms. Rainfall rates approached 1 to 2 inches per hour at times, leading to areas of flash flooding across portions of East Baton Rouge and Livingston Parishes, where roads became impassable, vehicles were stranded, and water encroached on homes.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (30.3800, -91.0800)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1311147. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.