Flash Flood — Crawford, Illinois

2019-05-29 · near Bellair, Crawford, Illinois

Event narrative

Slow moving thunderstorms produced 3.00 to 4.00 inches of rain in about three hours during the late afternoon and early evening of May 29th. This resulted in rapid flash flooding of nearly all rural roads in extreme northern Crawford County. The town of Annapolis reported two feet of water across the entire community. The flooding subsided in most locations before midnight.

Wider weather episode

Several clusters of thunderstorms developed along a nearly stationary frontal boundary draped across central Illinois during the late afternoon and evening of May 29th. Four landspout type tornadoes touched down beneath developing cells across portions of Christian and Macon counties. Other storms produced isolated wind damage and hail as large as quarters. In addition, numerous cells training over the same locations dropped as much as 2 to 3 inches of rainfall in a short period of time along the I-70 corridor. As a result, localized flash flooding occurred across portions of Effingham and Clark counties, with the most significant flooding taking place in West Union in Clark County where several feet of water was flowing across town.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (39.1743, -87.9489)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 832920. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.