Two storms bring heavy rainfall and flash flooding to southwest Nebraska.
By Rhonda Stansberry
Omaha World-Herald (Nebraska)
Copyright 2007 The Omaha World-Herald Company
OMAHA, Neb. — Don Welch recalls seeing water all around the Champion Mill only once in his 80-year lifetime.
Did he suspect he was witnessing history this week?
Giant cottonwoods tumbled into Frenchman Creek. The fire department from a nearby town held back the curious with yellow “crime-scene” tape.
A large steel drainage culvert from a washed-out road stood on end at the edge of Champion Lake.
Sandbags protected a neighbor’s patio.
This is an area of Nebraska — in the southwest corner nearly into Colorado — that measures its rain in drops on the dust.
Nearly 9 inches of rain fell Monday afternoon through Tuesday morning in the Champion, Neb., area, said Mark Byrd of the North Platte National Weather Service.
Flash flooding was occurring in Hayes, Chase, Perkins, Lincoln, Dundy and Keith Counties by Tuesday afternoon.
Some of these areas were hit with heavy rains two weeks ago. At the time, Frenchman Creek at Culbertson, Neb., flooded.
Sheriff Tim Sutherland of Chase County reported that U.S. Highway 6 had been closed by more than 2 feet of water on the roadway. Several county roads west of Sand Draw also were washed out.
The sheriff and a deputy were stranded by the flooding overnight and had to drive into Colorado, then up through Benkelman, Neb., to get back to the Chase County seat of Imperial.
Southwestern Nebraska counties first were hit by a storm from the Rockies, as thunderstorms started developing Monday afternoon and rain started early Monday night.
A second storm, from the southwest with a tropical feed, arrived Tuesday.
Welch said he heard reports of 11 inches and 15 inches of rain from areas just a few miles west of the Champion Mill State Historical Park, where his wife, Jean, works on weekends as a tour guide.
To get a sense of how rare the rains were, Christy Carlson, a regional climatologist with the High Plains Regional Climate Center in Lincoln, pulled up an analysis showing that kind of event happens less than once in a hundred years, maybe less than once in a thousand years.
For the month of June, the rainfall record for Imperial, a town of about 2,000 people, is 8.75 inches set in 1962. (No official records are kept for the tiny Champion.)
The single-day record for Imperial was 5.73 inches Sept. 2, 1942. For nearby Wauneta, it was 5 inches on July, 30, 1905.
Jo Leyland, Imperial city clerk, said that Imperial had 2 1/2 to 3 inches by midday Tuesday, but she knew people in the Champion Lake area who had to leave their homes because the normally placid Frenchman Creek was flooding.
“I know they’re worried about the bridges,” Leyland said.
Welch worried about his tomatoes, beans, carrots and sweet corn. With the rain that started Monday night came hail — some quarter-sized.
“We’ve been fairly dry, but we’ve had more rain this year than in a lot of years.” Welch said.
“This rain is helping with a lot of the deficit we’ve had for several years,” Carlson added. “It’s not exactly what we want — so much at once — but this is helping.”
Byrd said the flooding is the result of the long duration of
those two storms. More activity is expected over the next 24 hours all the way across western and central Nebraska.
The storm was feeding areas to the northeast and missing areas in the extreme northwest Panhandle.
Welch knows how that feels — to get missed.
“It’s been unusual here. We don’t have too much excitement.”