Flood in Sebastian County, Arkansas

Near catastrophic flooding occurred along the Arkansas River with residential subdivisions and businesses flooded in Fort Smith. Numerous roads were closed. A man drove around a barricade near Fort Chaffee on the 28th, was washed off the road into the flooded river, and drowned. Monetary damage from this flood is unknown.

A persistently, active weather pattern, consisting of a deep trough over the western U. S. and ridging along the Gulf Coast and southeastern U. S., set the stage for numerous rounds of rainfall across the Southern Plains from May 18th through the end of the month. The atmospheric moisture remained unseasonably high during this period, resulting in very efficient rainfall-producing showers and thunderstorms. Antecedent conditions from the rainfall earlier this month and at the end of April meant that soil moisture was already high, and any additional rainfall would quickly become runoff. Antecedent river and lake levels across eastern Oklahoma were also above normal ahead of this active storm period. Six to sixteen inches of rain fell between May 18th and May 30th along and northwest of a line from near Okmulgee, OK to near Bentonville, AR, and three to five inches of rain fell southeast of this line. Widespread ten to sixteen inch amounts fell across portions of southern Kansas and northern Oklahoma. During this period, six USACE Tulsa District flood control reservoirs set new pools of record in northeastern Oklahoma: Kaw, Keystone, Skiatook, Birch, Oologah, and Hudson Lakes. The result was an extended period of major to record river flooding across northeastern Oklahoma. These near-record to record flows moved through the entire Arkansas River valley, resulting in major to record flood levels of the Arkansas River near Van Buren and Ozark, as well as Lee Creek near Van Buren.