At least 21 people died in the first week of April due to bad weather and extensive flooding, the Associated Press reported on Monday.
The forecast for the entire event is very good (see our April 2 prediction). Under severe personnel and infrastructure pressures, the National Weather Service continues to exist this year, with dozens of life-saving tornadoes and flood warnings issued.
From Wednesday to Saturday, a relentless and violent thunderstorm developed from Wednesday to Saturday along the ground front line along the South Plains to the Ohio Valley. As the upper thrusts pass over the head, the front whips north and south, oscillations may avoid more trouble: the area with the greatest rainfall every day is enough to change most or more of the rest time without rain during the four-day violent attack.
Among the largest cities in Tennessee and Arkansas, there are locations with a historic four-day rainfall:
- Memphis, Tennessee: 12.37 inches, only over 13.59 inches from June 7 to 10, 1937 (records began in 1872)
- Little Rock, Arkansas: 11.82 inches, over 12.53 inches (record) from December 24 to 27, 1987, only from May 6 to 9, 1892 (record)
The widespread, imbalanced spread of the largest rainfall also means that floods tend to be localized, so it will take time to assess the full range of damage. Many of the flooded homes and businesses in the area are scattered with many pockets.
Read: Why is it so hard to rain? Global warming is pouring rain
According to water.noaa.gov, the Kentucky River at the State Capitol of Frankfurt, Kentucky was 48.27 feet on April 7 at 4:00 a.m. On December 10, 1978, this was three inches lower than a record 48.47 feet, while at 47.46 inches observed during the catastrophic Ohio River flooding in January 1937, the flood occupied 385 people's lives and 385 people's lives in the area and was homeless in the area. Both the 1937 and 1978 floods flooded much of Central Frankfort, which is located in a compact valley but a pair of flood walls (completed in the mid-1990s) designed to be a 51-foot peak.
Several other points along the Kentucky River have occurred in record and near record crowns. In the south of Lexington near the Nelson National Monument, the river is 47.04 feet, exceeding more than a century of record records in the 46.02 feet record on May 3, 2010.
Next week or longer, moderate to significant flooding will travel southward from Mississippi to the state of southward as floods flow into the vast rivers. As snow-covered groups near upper Mississippi this winter are well below average, snow melting flooding is not enough to push the river downstream to a truly historic flood, although there may be some impact in areas prone to flooding. Rescuers from far away from North Carolina helped in the hard attacks in the area.
Before the tornado
During April 1-6, the Storm Prediction Center prepared 109 preliminary tornado reports after filtering duplicates. It's an impressive total for the multi-day outbreak, but well beyond record numbers. (For comparison, the super outbreaks in 1974 and 2011 spawned more than 140 confirmed tornados in 24 hours.) Neither tornadoes appear to have produced long-term catastrophic damage in the past week.
By far, the most active tornado day is Wednesday, April 2, with 70 reports. The initial storm investigation concluded that six tornadoes April 2-3 caused at least EF3 damage to the enhanced Fujita scale in parts of Arkansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri and Tennessee. There are no preliminary findings for damage to EF4 or EF5, but the investigation was extended to Sunday by multiple rounds of severe weather, so there may be updates this week.
One of the most intense tornadoes broke out across Arkansas near Lake City on Wednesday night.
Jeff Masters contributed to this article.
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