Former Hurricane Laura weakened to a tropical storm over Arkansas on Thursday afternoon.\u00a0 At 2:00 p.m. EDT on Thursday the center of Tropical Storm Laura was located at latitude 32.9\u00b0N and longitude 92.8\u00b0W which put it about 25 miles (40 km) west-southwest of El Dorado, Arkansas.\u00a0 Laura was moving toward the north-northeast at 15 m.p.h. (24 km\/h).\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 65 m.p.h. (105 km\/h) and there were wind gusts to 80 m.p.h. (130 km\/h).\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 988 mb.<\/p>\n
All coastal Tropical Storm Warnings have been discontinued.<\/p>\n
Hurricane Laura caused significant wind damage over southwestern Louisiana.\u00a0 The largest concentration of damage appeared to be around Lake Charles, Louisiana.\u00a0 There were reports that the dome for the weather radar at the National Weather Service office in Lake Charles sustained heavy damage.\u00a0 The Automated Surface Observing Station (ASOS) at Lake Charles reported a peak wind speed of 133 m.p.h. (215 km\/h).\u00a0 There were also reports of widespread power outages in Louisiana and eastern Texas.<\/p>\n
Former Hurricane Laura gradually weakened as it moved inland over Louisiana.\u00a0 The circulation around Tropical Storm Laura was still well organized.\u00a0 However, drier air was wrapping around the western and southern sides of the circulation.\u00a0 The heavier rains and stronger winds were north and east of the center of Laura.\u00a0 Flash Flood Watches were in effect for parts of Arkansas, western Tennessee, western Kentucky and extreme southeastern Missouri.<\/p>\n
Tropical Storm Laura will turn more toward the east when it reaches southern Missouri on Friday.\u00a0 Westerly winds in the middle latitudes will carry Laura toward the east coast of the U.S.\u00a0 Tropical Storm Laura could bring gusty winds and locally heavy rain to West Virginia on Saturday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Former Hurricane Laura weakened to a tropical storm over Arkansas on Thursday afternoon.\u00a0 At 2:00 p.m. EDT on Thursday the center of Tropical Storm Laura was located at latitude 32.9\u00b0N and longitude 92.8\u00b0W which put it about 25 miles (40 km) west-southwest of El Dorado, Arkansas.\u00a0 Laura was moving toward the north-northeast at 15 m.p.h. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,2],"tags":[528,527,115,2181,118,1775,2160,113,116,117,2159,122],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10216"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10216"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10216\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10217,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10216\/revisions\/10217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}