Flood — Sarasota, Florida

2017-08-26 to 2017-08-28 · near Longboat Key, Sarasota, Florida

Event narrative

Heavy rain started to fall over Sarasota County on the 26th and continued through the 28th, with as much as 16 inches of rainfall. The highest rain totals were reported along the coast, with 14.74 inches falling in 3 days at the Sarasota/Bradenton Airport in Manatee County. This led to numerous reports of streets flooding across the area, mainly on the 26th through early morning on the 27th.

One fatality was reported in Sarasota County on the afternoon of the 27th, when a 73 year old man driving through a flooded parking lot at the dog track in Sarasota ended up in a drainage ditch and drowned inside the vehicle. A separate car also drove into the drainage ditch in the same parking lot, but was able to escape unharmed.

Wider weather episode

A trough of low pressure developed over the eastern Gulf of Mexico and passed east across the Florida Peninsula on the 26th through 28th of August, bringing abundant tropical moisture into the area. Heavy rain fell across the area each day, with some areas seeing over 16 inches of rain totals throughout the event. Flood waters entered numerous homes in Hillsborough, Manatee, Sarasota, and Lee counties, as well as making numerous roads impassable and stalling vehicles. The flooding also caused two separate drowning deaths in the area.

In addition to the flooding, the storms produced some wind damage and a brief EF-0 tornado in Manatee County.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (27.3889, -82.6429)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 710655. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.