Nicholas: Nearly 5 million people are under flash flood watch as storm looms over Gulf region

Nicholas first made landfall as a Category 1 hurricane in South Texas early Tuesday morning, with winds of 75 mph with higher gusts. The storm also drenched parts of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and the Florida panhandle as it weakened into a tropical depression.

Located near Marsh Island along the central Louisiana coast and with winds of 25 mph, Nicholas became a post-tropical cyclone Thursday morning, the National Weather Service Weather Prediction Center said.

An additional 2 to 4 inches of rain could fall in the region through Friday, with some areas likely to see 12 inches, the Weather Prediction Center said. Minor but widespread river floods are expected, and moderate scattered river floods are possible.

Nicholas is expected to slowly move north over the next few days, the Prediction Center said.

“There is a northerly dry air mass coming from the west, which will help remove some of the precipitation in northern Louisiana over parts of northwestern Mississippi and western parts of the Mississippi. Tennessee, ”CNN meteorologist Michael Guy said. “However, central and southern Louisiana could still see rain and storms until Friday, some of which could cause heavy showers.”

“Considerable impacts of flash floods, especially in urban areas, are possible in these regions,” the NWS said.

Georgia and the Carolinas are also expected to experience heavy rains on Thursday.

“Some of that rain will be heavy at times, so there is always the threat of flash flooding,” Guy said.

Nicholas will slowly drift north over the next 48 hours in southern Arkansas, where it dissipates on Saturday morning, Guy said.

“A few dozen” of oil spills require special attention after Hurricane Ida

The Category 4 storm and the conditions that followed claimed the lives of at least 29 people in Louisiana, with the latest death being announced Tuesday by Governor John Bel Edwards. Excessive heat is responsible for 13 deaths, while six people have died from carbon monoxide poisoning, he said.

Edwards said only a few of the hundreds of reported oil spills required action.

The Louisiana Office of the Oil Spill Coordinator is working with the US Coast Guard, Edwards said on his monthly statewide radio show, and the crews have reduced the spills to “a few dozen.” problems that need more attention.

“None of them have a spill like what we’ve seen in the past, with big hurricanes like Katrina, for example,” Edwards said.

He noted that one incident involved an abandoned pipeline that became dislodged and still contained product.

“I don’t know yet who would have been the responsible party, but this pipeline has been capped with the ability to go back and capped it so that we can go back and suck it up and get any remaining product in. get out, “the governor said.” But it’s all gone out to sea, and I don’t think there’s any additional work to be done there. “