More flooding, this time in Iowa, as heavy rain risk shifts back to the Southern Plains

In brief: The Davenport, Iowa area dealt with some serious flooding last night. Today’s risk shifts back to Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico. The tropics remain quiet, but Florida should see a fair bit of rain next week as a tropical disturbance emerges in the Gulf. And we’ve got some good articles to share on the complexities involved in the Texas flooding tragedy.

Davenport flooding

The latest in an absolute spate of flash flood emergencies occurred yesterday in Davenport, Iowa. This was caused by a line of slow-moving thunderstorms that dumped 2 to 4 inches on the Iowa side of the Quad Cities. This brought totals for the day up to about 5 inches in spots.

Numerous instances of cars submerged in water and even some structures flooding occurred with the storms. Precipitable water, or how much moisture is actually available in the atmosphere was rather high across the Midwest yesterday evening, as shown from the European model’s output yesterday.

Officially, south of Davenport, the near upper air sounding in Lincoln, Illinois showed a PWAT of 1.77 inches, which is in the 90th percentile of days. For Davenport, those PWATS were probably closer to the 95th percentile. In other words, another day of some ultra rich moisture that the atmosphere tapped into and produced damaging flooding. Models did an ok job on this event, though the HRRR misplaced the bullseye too far northwest, whereas the HREF model was a little too aggressive and to the east.

For those keeping track, this was the 12th reported flash flood emergency this month across the country. Most obviously occurred in Texas, but there have also been emergencies reported in New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and in Iowa (and Illinois).

Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico flooding chances

Next, we focus back on Texas and the southern Plains. Another round of scattered storms may produce locally heavy rainfall today, including for Hill Country. The area is highlighted in a slight risk (2/4) of flooding rains today. This also includes much of Oklahoma and for the burn scars in New Mexico, including Ruidoso.

Anywhere from 1 to 3 inches is possible through today, with localized “lollipop” totals of 3 to 6 inches in any given location also possible. The focus of the highest chances of those higher totals occurring seems to be in Oklahoma and north of DFW Metroplex today. However, chances are not zero between Abilene, San Angelo, and areas west of Kerrville.

Hopefully in any of today’s cases, flooding will be of the sub-emergency sort. The Ruidoso area doesn’t stand out in the modeling today, but given the ultra-high sensitivity of soil there, it would not take much to trigger flash flooding.

Tropics

While the Atlantic is forecast to remain quiet over the next week, I would not be shocked to see a risk area drawn over the northeast Gulf at some point this weekend. Chances are probably 10 percent right now, if that, but there’s enough noise there to at least watch for the potential of a low-end system.

Rain totals of 2 to 5 inches are forecast for the Florida Peninsula and Panhandle coast, back into Mississippi and Alabama. Some localized flooding is possible, but obviously we’ll continue to keep tabs on the potential for anything more organized off the coast here.

More questions in the wake of Texas flooding

I don’t have a lot to write about here today, but I do want to point you to a couple notable articles this morning. To get a good perspective on what went wrong in Texas, the emergency management piece is absolutely critical to understand. Most people know emergency management exists. Many people don’t know what it does. Everyone, however, has an opinion of FEMA it seems.

First, read this excellent article about the warning timeline and the emergency management relationship and response from my colleague and friend Alan Gerard who writes the excellent Balanced Weather Substack.

Then, read his follow up piece here.

This stuff is complicated. It’s never a black and white issue, and the gray area is gigantic and broken into various shades of gray. But I feel like Alan’s posts there give you a good understanding of the interplay between emergency managers and the weather. Alan is a former NOAA/NWS employee who knows more than his share of how the two disciplines engage operationally.

Lastly, Chron.com in Houston published an excellent piece about the debate that occurred in Kerr County back in 2021. Monday morning quarterbacking is easy, but this raises serious, serious questions about what happens when you politicize to an extreme level certain elements of disaster and mitigation. It’s a cautionary tale that a number of vulnerable communities engaged in pre-2025. I’ve learned a lot about disasters as a meteorologist, and to me it makes absolutely no sense to reject federal money for disaster mitigation projects in a world where disasters are becoming more common. That money will go elsewhere instead. Hyper-politicization can literally harm communities. It’s time to start looking at this stuff more clear-eyed.

We will probably take tomorrow off and come back with a fresh post Monday. Thanks again to all our subscribers, new and old. It helps continue to propel us forward and upwards.