Flood Threat Is Back, from Texas to the Ohio Valley

[malaise]

https://www.wunderground.com/cat6/flood-threat-back-texas-ohio-valley
<snip>
Flash flood watches were in effect on Wednesday from eastern Texas to parts of West Virginia, as a slow-moving front and upper-level low drenched the corridor. It’s as if the atmosphere has hit the “repeat” button on the soggy pattern that brought record rains and flooding in February across much of this region.

The biggest threat for Wednesday into Thursday is localized flash flooding, especially where “training” bands of showers and thunderstorms may drop several inches of rain across a narrow strip. See the weather.com feature for regular updates.

As of Wednesday morning, much of the belt from Texas to Kentucky was under a slight risk of getting enough rainfall to exceed local thresholds for potential flash flooding (see Figure 1). A pocket from southeast Texas to the lower Mississippi River, including the Houston area, was under a moderate risk. Note that these flood risk outlooks are distinct from the severe-weather risk outlooks issued by the NOAA/NWS Storm Prediction Center.

Flooding is no doubt the last thing Houstonians want to deal with, just a few months after the region’s catastrophic encounter with Hurricane Harvey. Rainfall amounts won’t be anywhere close to the 30-plus inches observed with Harvey—the heaviest rains ever to strike a major U.S. city—but totals of 4-5” in spots could be enough to produce flash flooding.

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Stay safe DUers

[The Polack MSgt]

1. It's pretty bad here

in SW Illinois but not emergency levels yet

It's rained all week, probably 18-20 hours out of each day. The ground is full, the wetlands and ponds are full and it's still raining.

Luckily it hasn't been too wet north and northwest of us. If we had to deal with high river levels there would really be nowhere for the water to go.

As it stands now, the Illinois and the Kaskaskia are still draining into Big Muddy just fine - when the Mississippi is high and it rains around here shit gets scary pretty quick

[malaise]

2. And lots more rain is around

Stay safe.

[The Polack MSgt]

3. will do

thanks for the good thougts

[Igel]

4. It's not the first event that's the main problem.

We get this kind of rain in E Texas every year. Meh. This territory doesn't get average anything. A summer's average is often 98 or 80, not the "average" 94 you see listed. Average summers are rare. Same for rainfall.

Last fall, for instance, it didn't rain for a few weeks at all. Things looked bad. Then it rained cats and dogs. The month was average. Yeah--3 weeks of drought followed by the month's rainfall in 2 days.

What's bad is when we get this pattern repeated every few days. The first event pretty much saturates the ground and gets the streams running at or above average levels. Then the next event pushes stream levels up to near or even a bit over flood stage, because it all runs off. If there are more events, there's flooding.

Tax Day floods, for example, 3 years ago, were late in this pattern. The first event was fine. Last year no two or three events strung together. Two years ago, we had minor flooding in some areas and we had some people trapped at the school I work at because all the roads to and from the areas were under 2 feet of water. (But few houses were affected.)

[malaise]

5. Thanks for your input

It's the accumulated water that causes the real damage