Flash Flood — Carroll, Arkansas

2015-03-25 · near Beaver, Carroll, Arkansas

Event narrative

Leatherwood Creek flooded portions of Highway 187 near Elk Ranch. A vehicle was swept off the road by these flood waters. The vehicle was quickly found by first responders but the victim's body wasn't found until April 6th.

Wider weather episode

Severe thunderstorms developed during the afternoon hours to the east of a surface low pressure system located over southwestern Oklahoma and near a stationary frontal boundary that was draped across northeastern Oklahoma and northwestern Arkansas. Several of these storms developed supercell characteristics due to a very unstable air mass that was in place over the region coupled with strong vertical wind shear. These supercells produced a couple tornadoes, hail up to baseball size, and wind gusts to around 85 mph.

The storms evolved into a line during the evening hours and moved swiftly across northwestern and west central Arkansas, producing wind damage and hail to golfball size.

Locally heavy rainfall as a result of the storms moving repeatedly across the same locations produced localized flash flooding. A flash flood fatality occurred in Carroll County when a vehicle was driven into flood waters and was swept off the road.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (36.4558, -93.7572)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 567998. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.