Hurricane Gustav thankfully was not near as deadly or damaging as Katrina was three years ago.   However, widespread flooding from Mississippi to eastern Texas is still a problem.   And, portions of our area could be affected later this week from the remants of Gustav.

According to the National Weather Service office in Weldon Spring, the remnants of Gustav will filter into Missouri and close to the Westplex, starting Wednesday and lasting through Friday night.   That rich tropical moisture is expected to interact with a stationary front that will extend across southeast Missouri and southern Illinois , and create heavy rain in an area east of a line from Branson, through the Lake of the Ozarks and Columbia , to Hannibal .

In fact, as northwest Louisiana will see over 13 inches of rain…areas of the Westplex and Missouri could receive four to eight inches of rain.   So, even though the areas along the Mississippi River in east-central Missouri are two to 11 feet below flood stage now…and the Westplex points along the Missouri River are far below flood stage…the forecasted extremely heavy rain generated by remnants of Hurricane Gustav could provide flash-flooding problems for those two large rivers and their tributaries late this week.

That should put the areas hard-hit by the Flood of 2008 earlier this summer on notice, especially the Lincoln County towns of Winfield and Foley.