Flood risk to escalate as downpours soak Texas to Michigan into midweek

Repeated downpours will elevate the risk of flash, urban and river flooding along a 1,500-mile-long swath of the central United States into midweek.

Moisture from the Gulf of Mexico will stream into the nation’s midsection on a continual basis this week.

“Repeated bouts of rain are going to result in flooding problems over a good chunk of the South Central states and into the Midwest,” AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Frank Strait said.

A storm’s slow eastward progression, in conjunction with plentiful moisture, will result in downpours training over the same areas.

The ground will have little time to soak up one round of rainfall before the next one arrives.

During the 72-hour period ending late Wednesday, as much as 6 inches of rain or more is expected to fall in some communities from the lower Red River to the mid-Mississippi valleys and lower Great Lakes.

Water levels on small streams and rivers, including the Mississippi and Ohio rivers, are projected to rise significantly during the deluge across portions of Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana and Michigan.

People living in low-lying, unprotected areas along the major rivers should closely monitor the situation, take precautions and be prepared to move to higher ground if necessary, according to AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Alex Sosnowski.

Motorists should have an alternate route in mind as flooded and washed-out roads may alter their original travel plans. Even if flooded roads are not encountered, enough rain to slow travel and make it necessary to allot extra time to reach destinations is likely.

Several roads around Dallas were impassable due to flooding on Tuesday as heavy rain soaked the city.

The wet weather will bypass the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles, which are in dire need of rainfall, according to Strait.

In lieu of destructive flooding, the drought in Missouri and Arkansas will greatly benefit from the downpours.

The same weather pattern producing the torrential rain and flooding may also produce heavy, gusty and perhaps locally severe thunderstorms in the South Central states.

As the heavy rain crawls eastward late this week, the risk of flooding may extend into the central Appalachians, where some rivers remain above flood stage following rain last week.

Additional bouts of heavy rainfall into the end of the month are likely to worsen existing flooding and create new flooding problems from the Red River Valley to the Appalachians.

"Over the next few weeks, there may be multiple crests on the rivers in the region as runoff from each rain event works downstream," Sosnowski said. "Just because a particular community may have dodged flooding from one round of heavy rain does not mean they are out of the woods in this pattern."

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