Flooding Rain Threat Continues From Appalachians To The Rockies

Don't Underestimate The Power Of Water

A multi-day flash flood threat will continue to impact a broad stripe from the Appalachians to the Front Range of the Rockies due to a classic, stagnant summer weather pattern.

This soaking pattern began with massive flooding from record rainfall in St. Louis on Tuesday morning. Flooding has been reported in other locations since then, from southern Illinois to West Virginia and Kentucky.

Eastern Kentucky was hit with the most serious flooding Thursday morning, where training thunderstorms prompted multiple flash flood emergency warnings. See our updates at this link for more details on the disastrous Kentucky flooding.

Later Thursday, the St. Louis metro was hit by more flash flooding, however, it was not as widespread as Tuesday's event.

The culprit for the soaking rain the past couple of days is a stalled front that's interacting with copious amounts of moisture. Here is the latest radar covering the area from the Appalachians to the Central Plains showing where rain is currently falling along that front right now, along with areas under National Weather Service flash flood warnings (green outlines).

Portions of southern Missouri picked up over 5 inches of rain since Friday night.

The threat of rain will move from the South back into the Tennessee valleys on Monday.

And here is a map showing the latest flood reports (as blue dots) and rainfall (in contours) over the past six hours.

Forecast

Monday:

This includes an area from the Ozarks and Ohio Valley into the Tennessee Valley, Southern and Central Appalachians and mid-Atlantic.

Many of these areas could pick up 1 to 3 inches of rain over the next several days. However, locally higher amounts are a good bet where areas of rain either stall out or redevelop and track over the same areas, a process meteorologists call "training."

The National Weather Service has issued flood watches in parts of the Appalachians, shown by the bright green shaded areas on the map below. This means flash flooding is possible in these areas.

Take this flash flood threat seriously.

Make sure you have multiple ways of receiving National Weather Service flood warnings, including while you're sleeping, particularly if a rare flash flood emergency is issued.

Know how to quickly get to high ground if you live in an area prone to flash flooding.

Never drive into flood water, no matter how large your vehicle is. The majority of flood-related deaths occur in vehicles swept away or submerged.

The Weather Company’s primary journalistic mission is to report on breaking weather news, the environment and the importance of science to our lives. This story does not necessarily represent the position of our parent company, IBM.