The area is getting a break from the seemingly relentless wet weather, but those rainy days return Monday, according to the National Weather Service forecast.
Monday’s forecast is a 50 percent chance of rain.
Eunice Mayor Scott Fontenot said, “The grass has been growing and we’ve fallen behind on cutting the grass.”
He added, “I think that is everybody.”
Bill Fontenot, St. Landry Parish president, said the parish has gone through thousands of sandbags and tons of sand, but has been spared major flooding since the one in August 2016.
“People are getting weary,” he said.
But people are keeping their sandbags after the flooding threat subsides, he said.
“My recollection the last years it has been really something,” he said. “The first six months of every year it seems like in the last four years we’ve gotten exceptional rain and this year even more.”
The areas yearly average for rainfall is about 60 inches, he said.
As of 2:33 p.m. Tuesday, the total rainfall for the year at the Opelousas-St. Landry Airport was 32.41 inches.
National Weather Service forecaster Freddie Zeigler was quoted in Baton Rouge Advocate story, “When we get into May and June, where we don’t get any fronts in the area, sometimes we get into a pattern where there’s an elevated chance of rain each day, and that’s what happened here.”
June overall is expected to be even rainier than May, which itself was wetter than average in all three cities, the report stated.
In general, June is a wet month in southern Louisiana. It usually sees about 7 or 8 inches of rain, it stated.
In Lafayette on Tuesday, 2.39 inches fell, breaking a record set in 1950, the report stated. Another 2.39 inches fell on Saturday, said Jared Rackley of the National Weather Service.
An LSU AgCenter reported stated farmers are worried about the rainfall.
Farmers are concerned about how long soybeans can survive flooded conditions.
