Break out the umbrellas and forget about any big outdoor plans — it’s going to be especially rainy in the Tallahassee area all the way into next week.
The soggy weather is the result of a low that’s spinning in place over Louisiana and Mississippi combined with a southerly flow of “continuous moisture,” said Kristian Oliver, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Tallahassee.
“With all of that moisture, we will just be continuously unsettled or unstable,” Oliver said. “So that will just lead to days of just continuous rainfall.”
He added that the rainfall could be more light to moderate rather than heavy “but the accumulated amount could add up pretty quickly.”
NWS Tallahassee is calling for rainfall totals of 4-8 inches over the next six or seven days, though locally higher amounts could exceed a foot.
The Weather Service said confidence is low in terms of when and where the heaviest rain will occur. But as of Wednesday, May 7, the window for the most rainfall was Sunday and Monday.
“While confidence is increasing in the threat of heavy rain and flash flooding, the exact placement and rainfall totals are still relatively low confidence,” forecasters said in a May 7 hydrologic outlook.
The Weather Prediction Center is calling for a marginal (level 1 of 4) risk of excessive rainfall across the entire north Florida and South Georgia area. NWS Tallahassee said that risk level will likely go up as confidence in the forecast increases.
Oliver said it’s possible a flood watch will be issued in the near future.
“If we get training systems, where it just continuously rains over the same area, that’s obviously going to pose a threat here,” he said.
The jet stream is expected to push all the moisture out of the area early next week. The forecast calls for elevated rain chances of 80% from Thursday through Monday night.
Contact Jeff Burlew at jburlew@tallahassee.com or 850-599-2180.
This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Tallahassee area could see ‘continuous rainfall’ for days on end from slow-moving system
Reporting by Jeff Burlew, Tallahassee Democrat / Tallahassee Democrat
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