DIGITAL DESK: Heavy rain, flash flooding risk overnight (06/19/2026)

[00:00:48]Hey, good evening South Mississippi chief meteorologist Eric Johnsaw here with a quick weather update. You see our silver slipper tower cam in Hancock County looking north and east towards Harrison Stone County. Those are big thunderstorms producing a lot of lightning tonight. And unfortunately, they are dumping a lot of very heavy rain in a place that absolutely cannot handle any more rain. Let's switch over to the radar. Here we go. We have this big complex of thunderstorms that's firing up right on top of South Mississippi. And uh unfortunately, we still have a lot of moisture available for these storms to dump a lot of heavy rain in a very short amount of time. And the area that this rain is falling in has picked up almost one to two feet of rain over the last day or so. So any additional rainfall is going to cause flooding and we already have flash flood warnings in effect. So let's go ahead and take a look at those flash flood warnings. I do want to show you that on the map. Uh you can see uh northern Harrison County, pretty much all of Stone County and northern Pearl River County are now under flash flood warnings once again because of these heavy thunderstorms that are dumping a lot of heavy rain. Uh a little bit closer view shows again this this flash flood warning it's going to be for northern Harrison County. Uh so it includes Soer, Lausanna, areas just north of Lyman. So, it's going to include Woram, it's going to include Success, Riceville. Uh, so again, yesterday this area saw about 15 to 20 inches of rain.

[00:02:24]Now, we're getting more rain. Uh, on top of that, over into Stone County, flash flood warning. We got we had some big storms pop up right over Whites Crossing, which got hit by a tornado yesterday. Uh, that uh now you're seeing another big thunderstorm about to move right on top of you. uh dumping more heavy rain in in an area that again I know I keep repeating myself but I just can't believe all this heavy rain that is falling in an area that absolutely just does not need anymore. So flash flooding is going to start to ramp back up with these storms. Our rivers and creeks are already swollen. They can't handle any extra rain. So that rain is just going to flood out into your streets into your lowlying areas into your ditches. Uh so again, don't be out on the road tonight. I know there are a lot of displaced people that are displaced along the rivers and creeks.

[00:03:16]Um if you're lucky enough to be home and and you can stay in an area that is on higher ground, uh that would be best. uh if you can ride this out tonight uh with this heavy rain that is developing over uh Stone County. Over in uh Pearl River County, we're seeing very heavy storms popping up right over Poplerville, Hillsdale, Fords Creek, Lumberton, just north of Derby. And so that flash flood warning is for northern Pearl River County. Uh because again, all this area, it doesn't take much to cause some flooding issues when you've already had so much rain. I do want to quickly jump on here and let's take a look at this.

[00:03:57]Uh I wouldn't be surprised if maybe there was a water spout uh about to approach uh Cow and Lorraine. Looking at the presentation here, I'm going to see if I can switch over to our Hancock Tower Cam.

[00:04:18]All right, let's see. Hancock Tower Cam.

[00:04:22]Pull that into the show.

[00:04:30]All right, I'm going to have to change the direction. Bear with me while I change uh where the direction is on our tower cam. If I can turn it around.

[00:04:45]Looks like I can't open multiple P. Oh, here we are.

[00:04:49]Tower cam.

[00:04:53]Going to slide directions here.

[00:04:56]Have to log in remotely to turn this camera around in the direction that I want to see. Okay. Now I'm in.

[00:05:06]Okay.

[00:05:08]All right. So, unfortunately, it's pretty foggy out here or the camera is pretty foggy, but I'm not going to be able to see anything because it's dark out there. But, uh, that little area of rotation there, uh, is pretty visible on radar. Let me go back to radar.

[00:05:31]Switch back. though point of the direction of the camera where the storm is that is now moving onto uh on shore here. So there is somewhat of a little bit of a rotation here.

[00:05:46]Let's see if I can look at the radar uh velocity. It's not very strong, but if there was any kind of rotation, it would be right here uh right around 605. So, Cow and Lraine Road, that would be where we would see any kind of uh rotation with that storm this evening. Let me go back to the radar reflectivity. Yeah, there is somewhat of a a weak rotation. I I wouldn't say it's very strong, but uh definitely that's moving onto the coast into Harrison County. So over in along Highway 90 into Buxy and Diabraville are getting very heavy rain, but this little area of just uh looks like some weak rotation there on radar, but that is heading up towards uh 605 uh right on the coast there. So pretty much right where the little welcome Mississippi sign is whenever you get down to the bottom of uh Cowan on the beach. That's about where that little circulation is uh with respect uh to a location. All right. So, we're watching that. We're watching heavy storms all over parts of South. In fact, looking at this uh this particular storm that is blowing up right off the coast is about to dump some extremely heavy rain over Ocean Springs and Golf Park Estates. And uh that's moving up into Diabraville and St. Martin. And if you remember earlier in the week, this area got hit hard with some flash flooding. Those storms dumped about anywhere from, you know, 8 to 10 inches of rain in those spots. Elsewhere over into Jackson County, uh earlier you had some pretty big storms, but those have kind of fallen apart across the northern part of the county. But now we're just seeing storms kind of back building over Jackson County, at least on the southwest side of the county around Ocean Springs, Golf Park Estates, and just to the west of Goce and Moss Point and Pascagula.

[00:07:43]Sliding up to the north again, we're watching these storms over into George County. Uh good news is it looks like at least on the radar trends, these storms that blew up south of Bendale, they've kind of rained themselves out. I'm hoping that's what we start to see. uh we've kind of lost some daytime heating and storms uh they'll use up the energy that's there, but without any daytime heating to kind of replenish things hopefully. We just see these storms kind of rain themselves out. But the way that they are building and dumping a lot of heavy rain, um it's just not going to take much more rain to cause uh some big problems. All right. So, looks like I got a new radar scan over here on So, it looks like whatever little rotation there was uh that was approaching Cowan.

[00:08:28]I would say that's kind of weakened. And even when I look at the velocity, it wasn't really strong to begin with, but it's not not showing up as prominent as it was just a while ago. So, that's some good news. Uh but wouldn't have wouldn't rule out maybe a weak water spout that was trying to form there uh while we were looking at the radar. Me switch over to the alerts. Okay, so flash flood warnings.

[00:08:51]I do want to hit on these storms over into Pearl River County.

[00:08:56]Again, uh White Sands, Derby, Savannah, uh Hillsdale, Fords Creek, all just getting lots of heavy rain at the moment. And over into a new we just got a new radar update over into Stone County, seeing uh yeah, these storms right over Mckenry and Perinston.

[00:09:16]Yeah, this area has just been hammered with extremely heavy rain. So, these storms are just building. So, while Wiggins, you had a little bit of a break, looks like uh you're starting to get another round of very heavy rain uh with these storms. Not to mention, all of these storms are producing a ton of lightning. Look at all the lightning over the last 30 minutes or so. Let me just kind of go back.

[00:09:43]Tons of lightning. this little storm over here. It just has my attention because it all of a sudden it just kind of popped up immediately and we've just got a lot of lightning and usually when we get a lot of lightning immediately whenever the storm pops up that usually indicates a pretty intense updraft which also means some very intense rainfall rate. So a lot of heavy rains about to fall in a short amount of time around Ocean Springs and Buxy. But these storms to the north, they're producing a lot of lightning. And when I do a little inquiry on here, just kind of get an idea.

[00:10:18]So, over the last 30 minutes or so, this region that I just highlighted, over a thousand lightning strikes with these storms. And again, uh that lightning when it starts to uptick can be an indication of how strong the updraft is.

[00:10:30]And a stronger updraft means a stronger thunderstorm and you get more efficient rainfall amounts.

[00:10:37]I do just want to kind of show you again. Uh I think we know that we've got a lot of rain, but I think this map is worth showing. Again, look at that area around Stone County. Picked up close to uh very close to 25 inches of rain uh over the last couple of days or so. And much of that fell yesterday, by the way.

[00:10:59]A lot of that picked up. I will say the storms here at the station, they're pretty much right on top of us now. And I will say they have some pretty good wind with these storms. So there's some pretty good wind uh with these uh stronger downdrafts. We're getting strong uh strong gusty winds with some of these storms coming on through. Let me switch back over to uh to the radar.

[00:11:32]All right. Yeah, these storms are producing a lot of heavy rain. Uh they're now right on top of us here at the station. So if you are caught up underneath these storms, uh they're just putting a ton of rain and some gusty winds out there. Uh so yeah, just really impressive uh to see these storms kind of developing. I do expect these will continue to kind of build. They're building towards the southwest. So, they're going to continue to slide south into southwestern Harrison County, into Hancock County, into southern Pearl River County. And I'm watching these storms that this little complex that has pretty much died out around Hammond. But if you look very closely, you see this line uh coming into Washington Parish and you see these lines coming out of these storms and more that those are called outflow boundaries. That's rain cooled air and where they collide you get more thunderstorms. So I would not be surprised if more thunderstorms begin developing over into St. Tam and Washington Parish and possibly over Hancock County as these outflow boundaries collide. So um watching all of these storms hopefully they can rain themselves out and don't persist over the area for much longer. But wherever these storms remain, they are going to put down a lot of heavy rain in a very short amount of time.

[00:12:58]I do want to talk about the rivers because our rivers are cresting. You know, we've had some pretty some near record crests uh today. You know, preliminarily, the Buxy River may have crested at its highest crest ever at 21.17 ft. Uh that will have to be confirmed by the USGS at their gauge site, but that would be more than the May 1995 flood uh that occurred and caused lots of uh issues. Wolf River expected to crest around or had a crest earlier today of around 15.75 expected to crest at 16 ft tomorrow. That would put it within a half a foot of the record crest. The Jordan River uh earlier today was at 11 ft. That is the third highest crest so far. Again, all these would have to be confirmed by the USGS, but let's take a closer look at these rivers. Uh the Buxy River, the latest reading from the Buxy River near Lyman still at major flood stage. It's already pretty much crested. So, it is going to start to fall, but it's going to be a slow slow fall uh over the next uh day or so. Chica Buff River is currently at minor flood stage. Uh its crest is actually higher than the its current stage is higher than the forecast crest. So we've kind of exceeded that forecast. Um the Wolf River again currently 15.75 expected to crest at 16 ft. The Jordan River uh currently at 10.8. So it looks like maybe we have crested with the Jordan River. Uh and the east and west hobbleitta uh east hobbleitta now is in minor flood stage but the west hobbleitta is in major currently but it is beginning to fall. So that is some good news. So we're going to continue to watch these storms overnight. Beware of the flash flood risk. Uh there please do not drive over flooded roadways and heed all warnings overnight tonight uh as these storms just kind of can intensify across the region. And we continue to see very heavy rain and gusty winds with these storms. Uh stay weather aware overnight. We're going to keep an eye on these storms and we're going to have more on these storms and the forecast coming up on WLOX ABC and CBS coming up at 10 o'clock.