ST. LOUIS — Tropical Storm Cristobal made landfall along the Louisiana coast Sunday evening. The tropical cyclone has meandered across parts of Central America this last week, producing torrential life-threatening flash flooding before emerging into the Gulf headed for the U.S.
The National Hurricane Center is forecasting the storm to continue to move to the north and pass through the St. Louis area by late Monday night into Tuesday.
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This is the third named tropical system in the Atlantic basin this year and the earliest in the season to reach three named storms. Usually, the third named storm occurs around Aug. 13.
The storm's winds will weaken as it moves inland, but the heavy tropical rains will spread north through Louisiana, Mississippi and Arkansas Sunday night into Monday. The potential of four or more inches of rain exists over parts of the Ozarks into Mid-Missouri Monday night into Tuesday. A flash flood watch is in effect for western and southwestern parts of the 5 On Your Side Viewing area.
On Tuesday, there may be enough spin in the atmosphere to create a few brief tornadoes, particularly east of the Mississippi River. This is not uncommon with tropical systems over land.
In looking at the weather records going back to 1879 in St. Louis, the remnants of tropical weather systems impact our area about every three to five years. This will be the earliest tropical weather system to impact the region. The two earliest storms to impact our region happened before hurricanes were given names. A tropical system moved through eastern Missouri on June 14, 1906 and the second earliest was in 1901 on June 15.
Breezy conditions can be expected Tuesday with tropical downpours spreading northeast across the region. One to 3 inches of rain is expected with locally higher amounts possible.
Last year, the remnants of Barry moved through our area in July. In August 2012, the remnants of Isaac produced one weak tornado in Missouri and three weak tornadoes in Illinois.
The remnants of Gustav and Ike moved through in September 2008. The heavy rain associated with Ike produced areas of historic flooding.
