Too Much Water!

While most of Green Country saw a nice soaking rainfall to end the month of April, locations near the Oklahoma/Kansas border received much more than they bargained for. More heavy rain may be on its way.

Monday, April 30th 2012, 3:49 pm

By: News On 6


While most of Green Country saw a nice soaking rainfall to end the month of April, locations near the Oklahoma/Kansas border received much more than they bargained for. A meandering frontal boundary and a feed of warm, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico are to blame for the numerous thunderstorms that flooded Kay and northern portions of Osage County. Thunderstorms trained along the same corridor for hours, creating an area of more-than-impressive rainfall totals. Check out the 2-Day Rainfall map above. Nearly 9 inches of rain fell in Blackwell. Over half-a-foot of that water fell within FIVE hours! So much for the drought… now many areas are hoping for a nice, long period to dry out.

Flood rainfall wasn't the only issue with the storms last night. The National Weather Service in Tulsa confirmed the touchdown of an EF-1 tornado 6 miles ENE of Fairfax in Osage County. Fortunately, the only damage done was to trees and power poles. As I write this, there is still no word if a tornado touched down further east near the town of Dewey.

Much to the dismay of northern Oklahoma residents, more heavy rainfall and even severe thunderstorms are in the forecast from Monday evening into Tuesday morning. This will only exacerbate the flooding issues. The Caney, Verdigris, and Neosho rivers are all forecast to go out of their banks by midweek. Additional rainfall would only bring up the water levels to unwelcome heights. While afternoon thunderstorms are possible, the main threat will come late Monday night as a weak upper-level impulse provides the needed energy for another complex of storms to form in our muggy air mass. For this reason, the National Weather Service has also issued a Flash Flood Watch for areas north of Tulsa.

As we enter the month of May, things will continue to heat up. The week ahead looks like a week out of June with days that may feel like a sauna thanks to high humidity levels. Even if we don't break 90º, it won't be hard to break a sweat outdoors. Even though May is notoriously our most active severe weather month, it appears it may begin with a rather quiet pattern. The frontal boundary in our area will continue to lift north with little upper-level support for widespread storms for the rest of the weak. We will get locked into a warm, moist air mass, but capping aloft will suppress most storms, at least until the weekend. The severe weather threat will be focused more in the central Midwest while we seemingly enter this more summer-like pattern. Still, a few more storms can't be ruled out this week. It is prime severe weather season so we remain on-guard for whatever bubbles up!

Be sure to follow me on Twitter: @GroganontheGO and "like" me on Facebook!

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