Flash Flood — Lancaster, Nebraska

2008-06-04 to 2008-06-05 · near Hollam, Lancaster, Nebraska

Event narrative

Heavy rain caused flash flooding which caused extensive damage to basements and businesses and closed numerous county roads, mostly south of Lincoln, and especially along Salt Creek. Gravel was washed from roads and cropland was also flooded. It was estimated that resurfacing gravel roads alone would cost $180,000 and damage to homes and businesses could approach $1 million. Unofficial reports of up to 8 inches of rain fell from this storm.

Wider weather episode

A stationary front over Kansas started lifting north on June 4th as an unseasonably strong upper level low pressure system was organizing over the central Rockies. This allowed very warm and unstable air to feed north into southern Nebraska and southwest Iowa during the afternoon on the 4th. Severe thunderstorms that developed by early afternoon on June 4 over central Nebraska quickly spread and developed into eastern Nebraska and southwest Iowa through evening. A few tornadic producing supercells developed over the area...and many of the storms contained very heavy rain which fell on soils that were already saturated from significant rains recorded over the prior week. This caused areas of flash flooding and subsequent river flooding.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (40.5566, -96.7992)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 113559. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.