Heavy Rain and Severe Weather of October 16-17, 2006
A significant heavy rain and flash flooding event
occurred on October 16 and into the first part of October 17.
The event was set up by an anomalous pool of tropical type moisture
(~300% of normal) over the western Gulf of Mexico which was then
pulled northward by strong low level winds in advance of a westward
moving upper level disturbance. There were several other factors
in play which contributed to the large amounts of rain, such as
a northward moving warm front and a building upper ridge over
the eastern Gulf of Mexico. The warm front helped lift the air
while the building upper ridge served to weaken the westward moving
upper disturbance. This then caused the progression of the heavy
convective rains to slow and dump tremendous amounts of rain from
southeast Texas to north and central Louisiana and then into west-central
Mississippi. By late evening, dry mid level air began pushing
east from Texas and allowed the heavy rain shield to move and
exit the region by early Tuesday morning.
What makes this event rare is that such a large
area received 6 to 10 inches of rain and an even larger area received
4 to 6 inches. Embedded in that swath, a few locations in northern
and central Louisiana received a whopping 12 to 17 inches! During
this time of year, these kinds of rains usually occur from slow
moving tropical cyclones, not from a warm front and westward moving
upper disturbance. The result of all this rain was numerous reports
of flash flooding, some even significant, across northeast Louisiana
and west-central Mississippi. This event will go down in the record
books for the amount of real estate covered by heavy rainfall
and the several locations that measured extreme amounts.
The heavy rain wasn't the only story, scattered
reports of severe weather also occurred across the area. A couple
of tornadoes have been confirmed along with some wind damage.
An F1 tornado occurred in Thornton in Holmes County, Mississippi.
An F2 tornado occurred in the Oak Grove community just west of
Hattiesburg in Lamar County, Mississippi, damaging several homes.
Most of the wind damage was in the form of trees and power lines
down as small "bow echo" segments moved northeast within the band
of heavy rain. In Lake Village, Arkansas, strong pressure gradient
winds caused numerous trees to be blown down as well as minor
roof damage to some structures. In addition, a large bow echo
moved across south Mississippi early in the morning on October
17, 2006. The complex produced an F2 tornado in the community
of Oak Grove in northeast Lamar County. Nine homes were damaged
by the short track tornado, 2 with major damage and 7 with minor
damage. Large portions of roof were torn from 2 homes. Portions
of deck awning and metal barn roofing were blown one half to one
mile away. Missiles were generated by the tornado, including wooden
posts that were wedged into a lawn and a plywood sheet that peeled
sod from a section of a lawn. A large sheet of plywood was propelled
into a tree which carved a slot into the plywood that was found
lodged around the base of the tree trunk. The tornado track was
approximately three quarters of a mile in length and approximately
50 yards in width.
The following pictures are of damage in Lake Village.
The following pictures are of damage in Lamar county.
We would like to thank Lamar County Emergency Management
for their assistance with this survey.
The following images are of total rainfall across
the area. These were created by a combination of observed rainfall
amounts and radar estimates.
Click here
for a Public Information Statement concerning the heavy rainfall.
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