Life-threatening flooding was forecast to hit parts of the Plains and Texas early Wednesday, a day after those places were battered by more than two dozen suspected tornadoes.
Half of Oklahoma and parts of Texas and Arkansas were put under flash-flood warnings by the National Weather Service, which predicted that rainfall rates of 4 to 6 inches per hour could cause “dangerous flash flooding conditions quickly.”
In Wichita Falls, Texas, two inches of rain fell in 30 minutes just after midnight, with “life-threatening flooding possible,” the NWS said.
The deluge was the latest in a month of heavy storms and flooding in the area. Wichita Falls was less than 1 inch from breaking the record for its wettest month on record — previously 13 inches, set in May 1982 — and Weather Channel lead meteorologist Kevin Roth predicted it could fall within the week.
Oklahoma City, another area under the flash-flood warning, was also less than an inch from its all-time wettest-month record, 14.66 inches in June 1989, according to Roth.
After a brief pause starting Wednesday afternoon, the storms were set to ramp back up Thursday night and continue through Monday in some places.
"Some areas could see 8 to 10 inches of rain during this time, and if that happens we could not only see flash floods but also river and stream flooding as well," Roth said.
On Tuesday, 29 tornadoes were reported to the NWS across Texas and Oklahoma. One person was injured at a motel in Giddings, Texas, after a suspected twister hit the building, and at least one suspected tornado damaged buildings and came close to a police headquarters in Mineral Wells, Texas.
The tornado threat for Wednesday was expected to be low, Roth said.
