Storms Crawling Along the Gulf Coast Are Raising the Risk of Flooding

A cluster of thunderstorms that meteorologists call a tropical disturbance was moving west across the far northern Gulf on Thursday, delivering scattered heavy rainfall over the central Gulf Coast. Rain was expected to continue into Friday.

Southern Louisiana falls within the bull’s-eye of the storm activity, though New Orleans is likely to be spared from the heaviest rainfall.

“It doesn’t appear to be a huge impact to New Orleans, but this could change as sometimes forecasting the exact place of an individual thunderstorm can be difficult,” said Bob Oravec, a meteorologist with the Weather Prediction Center, which is part of the National Weather Service.

Key Things to Know

• The storms are expected to drift north into southern Louisiana on Thursday evening. The National Hurricane Center said that chances were low that they would intensify into a tropical depression.

• Regardless, there’s a chance for heavy rain in southern areas of Alabama, Mississippi and especially Louisiana in the coming days, with the rain most likely peaking on Thursday, continuing into Friday and lingering into Saturday.

• Flood watches are in effect for southern Louisiana and far southern Mississippi. By Thursday afternoon, more localized flash flood warnings had been issued. While a flood watch means that conditions are favorable for flash flooding, a flood warning means that flooding is imminent or already happening.

A tropical disturbance is often the first stage in a tropical storm, but this system is not expected to intensify enough to become a named storm, and it’s unlikely to even become a tropical depression.

“It’s just going to be a rain producer,” Mr. Oravec said. “There’s not much wind with it.”

The disturbance brought heavy rainfall to parts of southern and Central Florida this week as it moved west. “It moved onshore right near St. Augustine,” said Derrick Weitlich, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service office in Melbourne, Fla.

While many locations across Central and South Florida picked up one to four inches of rain on Monday and Tuesday, there were other locations with significantly higher amounts. A gauge in Plant City, a town near Tampa, recorded just over nine inches of rain on Monday.