Epic Rainfall in OKC

It's 9:43am and since 3am this morning, we've had 11.94 inches of rain at my house here in Oklahoma City. This is verified by both my electronic and physical rain gauges. We have streets all around us with many vehicles completely underwater in the low areas. I've been out shooting pics and video and am headed out again now. The rain is not letting up so far. The storms are just training on top of us and are very localized. People 5 miles form here have gotten very little rain. More later.

 

We're at 12.67 inches and it's starting to let up. There is a housing edition called Ski Island about 1 mile South of us at Hefner and MacArthur that has a larger lake surrounded by houses. Its dam is in danger of breaching. There are huge $500,000+ houses just below this damn. There is a major evacuation underway right now.

Here's a pic and a link to the video of a spot on MacArthur just 1/2 mile from us.



Here's the video. [ame="http://www.flickr.com/photos/42565092@N03/4699726783/"]Oklahoma City, 122nd & MacArthur on Flickr - Photo Sharing!@@AMEPARAM@@http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4060/4699726783_4f5d124c4f_m.jpg@@AMEPARAM@@4699726783@@AMEPARAM@@4f5d124c4f[/ame]

I took the pics and video with my Canon PowerShot SX10 IS and no I'm not an experienced videographer.

 

Absolutely!. My house is about 100 ft higher than this spot. We're purposely built on the highest lot in the edition so our water runs down on everyone else. There is a housing edition just downhill on the creek where that water is running to. People will build in crazy places with little thought to their surroundings or the future.

We have many swift water rescues going on right now.

 

I don't discount what you're saying at all. Imagine a super-cell thunderstorm dumping in one place for 6 hours without moving. That's what we had.

This kind of rainfall is unusual for us but super-cell thunderstorms here in tornado alley are not. This one just didn't move. This was primarily caused by the cold front sweeping down from Colorado this morning and thick moist air from the Gulf crashing into each other.

Believe it or not, they actually forecast this high rainfall in this very small area 3 days ago. We have some of the most complex and interesting weather in the world and some of the best forecasters anywhere. They predicted we'd get 2.5 inches in my specific area and much less in the surrounding areas. They got everything right except for the amount.

PS, we topped out with 12.69 inches in under 6 hours.

 

You are correct dammit, it is dam.

 

I'm glad you caught it. I hate those especially when I make them myself.

 

OMG, a Casady kid. Suddenly I understand you sooo much more. (just kidding, really)

It's fairly high in that area. I'm afraid it's bad news, it survived.

All the water's gone off the streets but the big problem now is everything downstream is flooding. All the Deep Fork drainage area is inundated. Check out the flooding NWS

 

LOL, sounds like a great idea. It's started raining again and were now up to 13.26 inches since 3am. Sheez.

 

What a difference a day makes. All the water is gone.

Unfortunately Monday is trash day in our area. There are countless large blue 90 gallon trash bins that were washed into big piles as well as the open top blue recycle bins. All the contents of the recycle bins was spilled out and is now lining all the creeks, etc. We have a big cleanup ahead.

Here's a link to other pics posted by residents on Flicker.

Eyewitness Photos of U.S. Floods - a gallery on Flickr