Birmingham area overwhelmed with flooding after a month's worth of rain
Thunderstorms dumped heavy rainfall across central Alabama, flooding apartment units, closing roads, and prompting over 40 water rescues Wednesday morning.
By
Adriana Navarro, AccuWeather staff writer
Published Jun 8, 2022 12:42 PM EDT
|
Updated Jun 9, 2022 8:30 AM EDT
Flash flooding occurred in low-lying and poorly drained areas of Alabama on June 8, due to heavy rain.
Heavy rainfall prompted widespread flooding across parts of Alabama Wednesday morning, causing city emergency responders in the state's second-most populous city to take on more than 40 water rescues over the course of three hours.
The morning rush hour traffic in the Birmingham metro area was met with numerous impassable roads Wednesday after intense thunderstorms rolled into the area around 1 a.m. CDT and continued to douse the region for several hours. Despite the high floodwaters across roads, there were still some who tried their luck in crossing roads and stalled out.
Amid flash flood warnings issued for areas of Shelby and Jefferson counties, rain rates of 1 to 1.5 inches per hour were reported at the Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport.
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Rainfall totals quickly soared to between 5 to 6 inches in some places, and one amateur CoCoRaHS observer reported 7.7 inches of rainfall at Lake Purdy, Alabama, located less than 10 miles northeast of Birmingham. That amount of rain fell over the course of 5.5 hours, and the observer noted it beat any 24-hour amount recorded there over their 22-year tenure at the station.
The Birmingham-Shuttleworth International Airport reported a total of 5.94 inches of rainfall as of Wednesday morning, more than the 4.18 inches received in the month of May on average.
These heavy thunderstorms formed along a slow-moving front late Tuesday night into early Wednesday, according to AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Alyson Hoegg. While the storms originated in northern Mississippi, they drifted southeast through central Alabama during the early morning hours.
Floodwaters rose quickly. The water levels at Village Creek near Ensley, a neighborhood in Birmingham, reached flood stage at 10 feet and continued to rise before 5 a.m., local time. Floodwater was reported in multiple landing apartment units on Valleydale Road in Inverness, a neighborhood in the Birmingham suburb of Hoover. In some instances, the water was waist-deep.
The Birmingham Fire and Rescue Service Department responded to 43 calls, WSFA 12 reported, rescuing approximately 40 people. No injuries were reported.
"Whenever severe weather is predicted, our public crews immediately prepare by cleaning inlets and waterways. Last night's levels of heavy rainfall, however, overwhelmed our system and affected many neighboring cities as well," Birmingham city officials said Wednesday over Twitter.
But the city won't have much time to recover. While the storms that prompted the flooding have moved on, more rainfall will move in this week before the state gets a respite from wet weather over the weekend.
"The rest of the week will feature multiple chances for additional rain and thunderstorms," Hoegg said. "Thunderstorms returned later [Wednesday] and [Wednesday night] as a cold front sank south. These thunderstorms should carry over into Thursday, but they won’t be as widespread. Additional showers and thunderstorms are expected on Friday. Drier weather should arrive this weekend."
The flood threat should be lower with the storms on Thursday, she added.
"While they can be locally heavy, widespread flooding shouldn't be a concern," Hoegg said. "If a thunderstorm were to develop and sit over an area that recently had rain, flooding may happen faster than it would if the area hadn’t seen the recent heavy rain."
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News / Severe Weather
Birmingham area overwhelmed with flooding after a month's worth of rain
Thunderstorms dumped heavy rainfall across central Alabama, flooding apartment units, closing roads, and prompting over 40 water rescues Wednesday morning.
By Adriana Navarro, AccuWeather staff writer
Published Jun 8, 2022 12:42 PM EDT | Updated Jun 9, 2022 8:30 AM EDT
Flash flooding occurred in low-lying and poorly drained areas of Alabama on June 8, due to heavy rain.
Heavy rainfall prompted widespread flooding across parts of Alabama Wednesday morning, causing city emergency responders in the state's second-most populous city to take on more than 40 water rescues over the course of three hours.
The morning rush hour traffic in the Birmingham metro area was met with numerous impassable roads Wednesday after intense thunderstorms rolled into the area around 1 a.m. CDT and continued to douse the region for several hours. Despite the high floodwaters across roads, there were still some who tried their luck in crossing roads and stalled out.
Amid flash flood warnings issued for areas of Shelby and Jefferson counties, rain rates of 1 to 1.5 inches per hour were reported at the Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport.
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Have the app? Unlock AccuWeather Alerts™ with Premium+
Rainfall totals quickly soared to between 5 to 6 inches in some places, and one amateur CoCoRaHS observer reported 7.7 inches of rainfall at Lake Purdy, Alabama, located less than 10 miles northeast of Birmingham. That amount of rain fell over the course of 5.5 hours, and the observer noted it beat any 24-hour amount recorded there over their 22-year tenure at the station.
The Birmingham-Shuttleworth International Airport reported a total of 5.94 inches of rainfall as of Wednesday morning, more than the 4.18 inches received in the month of May on average.
These heavy thunderstorms formed along a slow-moving front late Tuesday night into early Wednesday, according to AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Alyson Hoegg. While the storms originated in northern Mississippi, they drifted southeast through central Alabama during the early morning hours.
Floodwaters rose quickly. The water levels at Village Creek near Ensley, a neighborhood in Birmingham, reached flood stage at 10 feet and continued to rise before 5 a.m., local time. Floodwater was reported in multiple landing apartment units on Valleydale Road in Inverness, a neighborhood in the Birmingham suburb of Hoover. In some instances, the water was waist-deep.
The Birmingham Fire and Rescue Service Department responded to 43 calls, WSFA 12 reported, rescuing approximately 40 people. No injuries were reported.
"Whenever severe weather is predicted, our public crews immediately prepare by cleaning inlets and waterways. Last night's levels of heavy rainfall, however, overwhelmed our system and affected many neighboring cities as well," Birmingham city officials said Wednesday over Twitter.
But the city won't have much time to recover. While the storms that prompted the flooding have moved on, more rainfall will move in this week before the state gets a respite from wet weather over the weekend.
"The rest of the week will feature multiple chances for additional rain and thunderstorms," Hoegg said. "Thunderstorms returned later [Wednesday] and [Wednesday night] as a cold front sank south. These thunderstorms should carry over into Thursday, but they won’t be as widespread. Additional showers and thunderstorms are expected on Friday. Drier weather should arrive this weekend."
The flood threat should be lower with the storms on Thursday, she added.
"While they can be locally heavy, widespread flooding shouldn't be a concern," Hoegg said. "If a thunderstorm were to develop and sit over an area that recently had rain, flooding may happen faster than it would if the area hadn’t seen the recent heavy rain."
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