A slow-moving area of low pressure and a high amount of atmospheric moisture produced heavy rainfall across Louisiana and southwest Mississippi in August 2016. Over 31 inches of rain was reported in Watson, 30 miles northeast of Baton Rouge, over the duration of the event. The result was major flooding that occurred in the southern portions of Louisiana and included areas surrounding Baton Rouge and Lafayette along rivers such as the Amite, Comite, Tangipahoa, Tickfaw, Vermilion, and Mermentau. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Lower Mississippi-Gulf Water Science Center operates many continuous, streamflow-gaging stations in the impacted area. Peak streamflows of record were measured at 10 locations, and seven other locations experienced peak streamflows ranking in the top 5 for the duration of the period of record. In August 2016, USGS personnel made fifty streamflow measurements at 21 locations on streams in Louisiana. Many of those streamflow measurements were made for the purpose of verifying the accuracy of the stage-streamflow relation at the associated gaging station. USGS personnel also recovered and documented 590 high-water marks after the storm event by noting the location and height of the water above land surface. Many of these high water marks were used to create twelve flood-inundation maps for selected communities of Louisiana that experienced flooding in August 2016. This data release provides the actual flood-depth measurements made in selected river basins of Louisiana that were used to produce the flood-inundation maps published in the companion product (Watson and others, 2017).
Reference
Watson, K.M., Storm, J.B., Breaker, B.K., and Rose, C.E., 2017, Characterization of peak streamflows and flood inundation of selected areas in Louisiana from the August 2016 flood: U.S. Geological Survey Scientific Investigations Report 2017–5005, 26 p., https://doi.org/10.3133/sir20175005.
