🌧️ Historic Rainfall in Avoyelles Parish: 29.06 Inches in Just 12 Hours!
Verified Cottonport gauge records 29.06 inches in under 12 hours
The June 18 flood in Avoyelles Parish is no longer only being remembered as historic by those who lived through it. It is now officially part of Louisiana weather history.
Meteorologists with the National Weather Service office in Lake Charles and Louisiana State Climatologist Jay Grymes confirmed that a rain gauge near Cottonport recorded a new Louisiana 24-hour rainfall record during Tropical Storm Arthur and its remnants.
The verified total was 29.06 inches. Even more remarkable, officials said the full 29.06 inches fell in less than 12 hours, though the record is measured as a 24-hour rainfall total.
The rainfall was recorded by a CoCoRaHS rain gauge near Cottonport. The gauge was inspected and verified during a site visit, confirming the extraordinary total. The previous Louisiana 24-hour rainfall record was 22.00 inches, recorded in Hackberry on Aug. 29, 1962, according to the National Weather Service.
That means the Avoyelles Parish total broke the previous state record by more than seven inches.
For a parish that has seen its share of high water, hurricanes, backwater flooding and heavy rain, the new record stands out as an astonishing weather event. Nearly 30 inches of rain in less than half a day is difficult to imagine until it is measured, verified and placed into the record books.
This was not an ordinary heavy rain. It was a record-shattering event.
Tropical Storm Arthur did not bring widespread hurricane-force wind damage to Avoyelles Parish. Instead, its remnants produced overwhelming rainfall in a short period of time.
Ditches, culverts, bayous, fields and drainage systems could not move the water fast enough.
For residents across the parish, the official number helps explain what many already knew from what they saw in their yards, roads, fields and neighborhoods. Water rose quickly. Roads disappeared. Bayous and drainage systems filled. Rain continued falling faster than the parish could move it.
The record rainfall came after an already wet stretch across the region. PRISM precipitation estimates showed large areas along the northern Gulf Coast had received at least 20 inches of rain since May 1, with peak estimates of about 44 inches in Avoyelles Parish and 47.1 inches in south Mississippi.
By the time Arthur’s rain fell June 18, the ground was already saturated. When nearly 30 inches fell in less than half a day near Cottonport, the flood became more than a local disaster. It became a benchmark in Louisiana weather history.
For Avoyelles Parish, the number 29.06 will now be remembered with June 18, 2026. It helps explain the flooded roads, overwhelmed drainage, fast-rising water and stories residents will tell for years to come.
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