Flash Flood — Elk, Kansas

2024-04-27 to 2024-04-28 · near Moline, Elk, Kansas

Event narrative

Multiple locations along United States Highway 160 were closed due to water flowing over the roadway. Other roadways were in the area were impacted with water covering them. The Longton cooperative observer measured 6.9 inches of rain during the morning hours of the 28th. Some roads were washed out in the county as well.

Wider weather episode

On Saturday April 27th, there was volatile severe weather across Kansas and Oklahoma. An abundance of moisture and increasing shear through the day resulted in numerous rotating storms which produced several tornadoes across the Flint Hills into southeast Kansas. The strongest tornado was an EF-2 which occurred in Cowley County which did damage to a few outbuildings. Luckily there were no injuries or fatalities reported with these storms. There are 12 confirmed tornadoes from this event with most of them being EF-U or EF-0. These storms did produce hail ranging from quarter to golf ball size and some damaging wind gusts.

Flooding eventually became a major issue as storms trained across southeast Kansas for several hours into the wee hours of the 28th. Between April 25th and April 28th, many locations across southeast Kansas picked up between 7 and 10 inches of rainfall which sent the Neosho, Verdigris and Fall rivers into flood. Five forecast points rose to moderate flood stage. There was damage to several county roads from the flooding with complete washouts, and part of a railroad track in Wilson County was taken out from water eroding the embankment.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (37.3850, -96.2464)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1176461. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.