Heavy Rain — Chautauqua, Kansas

2024-04-27 to 2024-04-28 · near Cedar Vale, Chautauqua, Kansas

Event narrative

A public report relayed via emergency management of an estimated 6.4 inches of rain at Road 6 and Quivira Road. The gage overflowed thus the full measurement is unknown. Additional rainfall reports were received in the county ranging from 4.02 inches in Sedan to 3.77 inches near Hale by cooperative observers. There was quite a bit of flooding and associated road damage in the western portion of the county due to rises on rivers, creeks and streams.

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 → (37.2298, -96.4357)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1176628. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.