Saturday, September 21, 2019

Heavy rain, locally severe storms to soak the central US this weekend

By Maura Kelly, AccuWeather meteorologist




Tropical moisture streaming into the central Plains from the tropical systems in the East Pacific Ocean will help to fuel severe thunderstorms and flooding downpours across the region into Sunday night.
Drenching rain developed across the Dakotas and northern Minnesota Friday evening and continued into Saturday morning as a storm system began to strengthen over the region.
Residents woke up to flooded roadways as over five inches of rain fell in Grand Forks, North Dakota, Friday night. Radar-estimated rainfall shows similar rainfall totals across much of the area.
Grand Forks normally receives 2.05 inches of rain through the month of September.
Downpours erupted farther south on Saturday afternoon and evening, targeting a corridor from northern Kansas to southwestern Iowa.
The storm system that soaked the northern Plains to begin the weekend will continue to slowly sag southeastward into Sunday night. Tropical moisture from Lorena and Mario will be pulled northward into the central Plains, enhancing rainfall across the region.
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On Sunday, downpours will soak the same areas of the central Plains that were hit late Saturday. But as tropical moisture is pulled farther north, drenching rain is also forecast to spread into Illinois, Iowa and Michigan.
Flash flooding will be most common in areas where the front stalls and brings multiple rounds of heavy rain to end the weekend.
"This will have the ability to produce widespread rainfall totals of 1-3 inches with the AccuWeather StormMax™ of 6 inches," AccuWeather Meteorologist Tyler Roys said.
Chicago; Kansas City, Missouri, and Oklahoma City are forecast to be in the heavy rain area.
Spectators heading the Kansas City Chiefs game on Sunday will need to be aware of possible road closures due to flooding and pack rain gear for the game.
A line of locally heavy showers and thunderstorms along the cold front will begin to push south out of the central Plains Sunday night, while the bulk of the tropical moisture fueled rain spreads into parts of the Ohio Valley.
The storm system will move toward the Northeast on Monday and drier air will settle into the northern and central Plains for the start of the work week.
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