Flash Flood — Ashtabula, Ohio

2024-06-26 · near Ashtabula, Ashtabula, Ohio

Event narrative

Widespread road flooding in Ashtabula and Plymouth areas. Some reports of basement flooding as well. Many of the roads flooded due to creeks coming out of their banks. A few cars stranded in a flooded underpass on Main Avenue in Ashtabula. Radar estimated 4 to 5.5 inches of rainfall in a 1.5 to 3 hour period. Two rain gauge reports in Plymouth reported nearly 6 inches of rainfall over a three hour period.

Wider weather episode

A cold front drifted southeastward from central Lake Huron, southern Lower MI, and northwestern IN to southern ON, southeastern Lower MI, far-northwestern OH, and northern IN during the late morning through early evening of the 26th. The front was preceded by a warm and humid sector comprised of weak to moderate MUCAPE and DCAPE, respectively, and moderate to strong effective bulk shear in northern OH. Scattered to numerous multicell thunderstorms and a supercell developed along and especially ahead of the front. These storms produced isolated straight-line convective wind damage. Some of these intense storms trained and produced excessive rainfall, which led to flash flooding across the Toledo metro area and in the Ashtabula area.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (41.8700, -80.8354)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1200438. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.