Flash Flood — Portage, Ohio

2013-07-10 · near Shalersville, Portage, Ohio

Event narrative

High water closed most roads in Shalersville after an estimated 3 to 4 inches of rain fell within one hour. This rainfall was after 16 consecutive days with rain in the region. Subsequently the saturated ground could not absorb the water and widespread flooding resulted. The water came up so quickly that emergency officials had to evacuate homeowners. Several people became stranded in their cars or homes. Hardest hit areas include Wentworth Street in the Bolingbrook neighborhood and Aurora East where water was several feet deep in homes. The flood waters inundated about half of the 350 homes. The waters receded within an hour or two.

Wider weather episode

A hot and humid airmass over the Ohio Valley was broken up on the 10th by a shortwave trough and a surface cold front that came moved through during the afternoon hours. Storms developed ahead of the cold front around noon, and ended with the exit of the cold front through northwest Pennsylvania around 7 pm. The humid and unstable airmass supported intense rainfall rates verified with reports of 0.75 in 15 minutes. These storms moved over an area that was already saturated from weeks of hit and miss storms and floods, and could not support the additional runoff produced during this event. The result was widespread flash flooding as the storms affected every county in the WFO Cleveland county warning area.

In addition to the flooding, widespread severe weather including three tornadoes occurred on July 10th. A line of intense thunderstorms developed ahead of the advancing cold front during the afternoon hours. Thunderstorm wind gusts in excess of 70 mph were reported. Seneca and Sandusky Counties in north central Ohio were especially hard hit. Thousands of downed trees and widespread power outages were reported. The Bellevue area was especially hard by the combination of straight line winds and a weak tornado. Nearly every street in the city had damage of some sort and it took five days for power to be restored to the majority of the city. Another tornado formed in northeastern Seneca County and moved in Huron County. A third tornado affected portions of rural Ashland County. Large swaths of corn were flattened across northern Ohio and nearly every county reported severe weather. As many as 250,000 electric customers lost power during this evening.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (41.2300, -81.2300)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 467743. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.