Flash Flood — Fulton, Kentucky

2023-08-04 · near Cayce, Fulton, Kentucky

Event narrative

Widespread flash flooding occurring in Hickman. Numerous roads were closed or impassable. Five homes in Hickman were evacuated due to flash flooding. Numerous streets remained closed through the morning. An area along Kentucky 94 in the downtown Hickman area was blocked for several days where a mudslide occurred, taking trees with it. Kentucky 125 was blocked near the Hickman city limits. The Fulton County mesonet site located two miles east of Hickman observed 11.28 of rain in 33 hours from 3 AM August 3rd through 12 noon August 4th. This broke the previous 2-day rainfall record for Fulton County, which was 9.80 back on January 1-2, 1966. The 24-hour record also was shattered, with 9.69 occurring between 8 AM August 3rd and 8 AM August 4th. The previous 24-hour record for the county was 7.24 set back on September 23, 2006.

Wider weather episode

Scattered to numerous thunderstorms with very heavy rainfall developed over southeast Missouri during the night of the 3rd. These southeastward-moving storms gradually morphed into an area of widespread moderate rainfall with isolated embedded storms through the morning of the 4th. The heavy rainfall on the 4th coincided with areas of heavy rainfall that occurred on the morning of the 3rd. Two-day rainfall totals approached a foot. The corridor of 6 to 12 inches was focused from Bollinger County, Missouri, southeast across Mississippi and New Madrid Counties into Fulton County, Kentucky. The synoptic pattern featured northwest flow at 500 mb across the lower Ohio Valley. Meanwhile, the surface analysis indicated a frontal boundary was draped across southeast Missouri into west Tennessee. Southwest of the frontal boundary, extreme heat and humidity was present, which led to high levels of instability. The thunderstorms developed along the instability gradient which was positioned near and west of the Mississippi River. The mean steering flow was southeastward parallel to the surface frontal boundary that was in place. Precipitable water values were extremely high, peaking around 2.3 to 2.4 inches both nights and mornings (Aug. 3-4). Meanwhile, a healthy low-level jet developed late at night into the morning, which helped provide the lift needed for thunderstorms to back-build and continuously move over the same locations.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (36.5683, -89.0403)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1122681. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.