Heavy Rains Lead To Flooding In Jacksonville

Heavy rains over the weekend, attributed partly to Tropical Storm Cristobal, which made landfall in Louisiana on Sunday night, led to flooding in several areas of Jacksonville.

Andrew Kennedy, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Jacksonville, said the highest recorded rainfall amount was 7.02 inches over a 24-hour period from Saturday to Sunday.

Some of the heaviest downpours were on Jacksonville’s Westside, where there was significant flooding on Sunday.

“We have particularly susceptible areas on the Westside of Jacksonville,” Kennedy said. “Closer to the river, there's just low lying areas that flood when it rains, especially when you get toward high tide. And those on the Westside, they flood just with an inch of rain a lot of times.”

Climate scientists say heavy downpours like this will become more common and more intense as temperatures rise.

As the world warms, more water will evaporate and every degree fahrenheit rise in temperature allows the atmosphere to hold 4% more water vapor. That means when it rains, there is more moisture in the atmosphere, fueling stronger downpours and increasing the risk for flooding.

As the tropical moisture from Cristobal moves out of the area, the NWS is expecting more typical summertime conditions.

“We'll see scattered showers and thunderstorms each afternoon through the rest of the week,” Kennedy said.

Brendan Rivers can be reached at brivers@wjct.org, 904-358-6396 or on Twitter at @BrendanRivers.