More Heavy Rain, Flash Flooding Possible This Week in the Rain-Weary Plains, Midwest

A highly amplified jet stream pattern for this time of year, with a deep southward plunge over the West and a northward bulge in the Southeast, will remain in place through Thursday.

Between those two buckles in the jet, a stationary front has parked itself across the central United States.

Deep tropical moisture – including some upper-level moisture from the remnants of Narda, a former tropical cyclone near the Mexican coast – is also being pulled northward from the Gulf of Mexico and Eastern Pacific Ocean into the stuck frontal boundary.

(INTERACTIVE: Latest National Radar Loop)

That setup is resulting in a large area of rain and thunderstorms across the central states from the southern High Plains into the upper Midwest.

Flooding from heavy rain prompted high-water rescues on Monday evening in southeastern New Mexico, according to a National Weather Service report.

Tuesday afternoon, the NWS received a few reports of brief tornado touchdowns in southwestern Iowa. No damage had been reported.

Flood watches have been issued by the NWS for parts of several states, extending along the frontal system all the way from the U.S.-Mexico border to southern Wisconsin and Lower Michigan.

Additional bands of locally heavy rain will propagate across the Plains and Midwest through Wednesday night or Thursday morning, before the stalled front finally gets a shove to the east and south.

A relatively large area of the Plains and upper Midwest is expected to see at least another 1 to 3 inches of rain through Thursday morning. Locally higher amounts will occur where bands of thunderstorms stall out for a period of a few hours.

This will likely trigger flash flooding in areas where the soil is already saturated by soaking rain from the past few days from the central Plains to the upper Midwest.

This rain may also lead to flooding of smaller creeks, streams and rivers, and some rises on a few larger rivers.

Moderate to heavy rainfall may also add to the flooding woes of the Missouri River Valley, which continues to deal with river flooding that has lasted since spring.

(MORE: Latest NWS River Flood Forecasts)

Green Bay, Wisconsin, and Huron, South Dakota, have already topped their wettest year on record.

A number of locations in the Plains and Midwest were reporting one of their wettest years to date through Sept. 28, according to the Southeast Regional Climate Center.

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