Flood — Wilson, Kansas

2024-04-28 to 2024-04-30 · near Coyville, Wilson, Kansas

Event narrative

Heavy rain from training thunderstorms produced a range from 3.27 to 8.9 inches of reported rainfall which led to continued flooding with rises along rivers, creeks and streams. High water from Fall River closed United States Highway 400 between Neodesha and Fredonia because of water flowing over it from 6:30AM on the 28th until 7PM that evening. Additionally part of a railroad track near Iola Road south of Fredonia was washed out from the rises along the river which eroded the embankment of the track. Other county roads had water over them well after the rain ended with damage to many of them.

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 → (37.7326, -95.9594)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1176617. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.