Ambling Bill unloading rain

Flood fears rise in areas already wet

Bill Buehring’s umbrella is caught in a gust of wind Wednesday from Tropical Depression Bill in Arlington, Texas. Though slowing and weakening, the storm still was packing a lot of rain.
Bill Buehring’s umbrella is caught in a gust of wind Wednesday from Tropical Depression Bill in Arlington, Texas. Though slowing and weakening, the storm still was packing a lot of rain.

Tropical Depression Bill slowed its path through Texas and Oklahoma on Wednesday, leading more rain to fall in already-soaked areas and triggering concerns about flooding on the Arkansas River and flash flooding in the Ozarks.

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AP/The Fort Worth Star-Telegram

Heavy rain from Tropical Depression Bill falls in Fort Worth early Wednesday.

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AP

A motorist plows past a road-closure sign into high water on a street in Irving, Texas. Some areas in the storm’s path, including Northwest Arkansas, could get up to 11 inches of rain, forecasters said.

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Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

A map showing the areas with the highest potential rainfall amounts.

National Weather Service meteorologists expect the storm -- which was downgraded from a tropical storm Wednesday morning as it lost strength -- to dump 5 to 7 inches of rain in much of eastern Texas, southeastern Oklahoma and Northwest Arkansas through today and Friday.

Some areas inside the storm's path could receive up to 11 inches of rain while it wobbles through the three states, forecasters said.

"We're going to see at least moderate flooding," said National Weather Service meteorologist Amy Jankowski of Tulsa. "The ground is already saturated from all the May rains, and we've had rain for the past several days. There's nowhere for the water to go but the lakes, streams and rivers."

The weather service has projected the Arkansas River at Van Buren -- already above its flood stage of 22 feet -- to rise more than 3 feet by Friday, going from 23 feet to 26.9 feet, as runoff from Bill's rains begin to work its way downstream.

In Little Rock, the Arkansas River level will be far short of its 23-foot flood stage, however. Weather service projections show a rise from 12 feet Wednesday to 14.5 feet Saturday morning.

"We had a break in the rain earlier this month, and that let the river go down," she said. "But the lakes are still high."

The second named tropical storm of the 2015 Atlantic hurricane season hit landfall shortly before noon Tuesday northeast of Corpus Christi, Texas, at Matagorda Island, with sustained winds of 60 mph.

Isolated areas along the Texas coast saw more than 11 inches of rain Tuesday, and scores of roads in eastern Texas were closed by high water. Inclement weather also caused the cancellation of nearly 500 flights at Dallas and Houston airports.

The system slowed to about 13 mph Wednesday afternoon as it passed over the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

The slower pace is allowing the depression to drop more rain in some areas and, in an unusual meteorological occurrence, to hold its strength somewhat while traveling inland. Tropical storms usually grow while taking in ocean moisture, then dwindle once they get to land.

This storm, however, is continuing to "feed" off the abundant moisture left in the Texas and Oklahoma soils from heavy May rainfalls, said Marshall Shepherd, the director of the University of Georgia's Atmospheric Sciences Research Program and host of The Weather Channel's Weather Geeks program.

Shepherd has named the phenomenon "brown ocean," referring to the rain-soaked brown soil of the Red River Valley.

He studied the intensity of hurricanes, cyclones and tropical depressions across the world from 1979 to 2008 and found that 45 of the storms maintained their strength or intensified after hitting landfall. In most cases, Shepherd said, there was abundant moisture available for the storms to continue thriving.

"Hurricanes feed on the moisture of the ocean," he said. "If they move over a landmass with enough moisture, they can continue.

"When I look at the radar and see the structure and organization of this storm, I believe Bill is feeding off the water and creating more rainfall than expected."

He said he could detect the storm's eye as far north as Waco, Texas, on Wednesday morning -- far inland from where storms should begin breaking apart.

This week's storm is following a similar trek from that of Tropical Storm Erin in 2007.

Erin hit land on Aug. 16, 2007, near Lamar, Texas. That storm weakened on Aug. 18, and took a northeasterly path through Oklahoma, much as Bill is now projected to do, but reintensified a day later with sustained winds of up to 60 mph.

The storm diminished again after it crossed into Missouri.

"If Oklahoma and Texas were bone dry this time, the storm would be nowhere near the strength it's maintaining," Shepherd said. "It looked looked more defined and more organized over Waco than it did when it made landfall."

Both states had up to 15 inches of rain during May.

The National Drought Mitigation Center -- an agency based at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln that evaluates drought conditions across the United States -- reported last week that the heavy rainfall greatly reduced drought conditions.

In March, 98 percent of Oklahoma was considered to be in some form of drought, according to the center. On June 9, the center's latest report, only 6 percent of the state remained in drought. Texas dropped from 58 percent in drought to 8 percent in drought over the past three months.

Heavy rains in May also eliminated drought conditions in Arkansas. The mitigation center reported March 10 that 53 percent of Arkansas was in drought. On June 9, the state was 100 percent drought-free, the center said.

Rain already began falling in southwest Arkansas on Wednesday afternoon as the "feeder bands," or rain bands associated with Bill's outer edge, crossed over.

National Weather Service meteorologist Joe Goudsward said the storm should continue its northeastern turn, and its center will reach Siloam Springs in Northwest Arkansas early Friday.

The heaviest rainfall in the state will occur this evening and Friday, he said.

"We're watching this closely to monitor where rainfall goes," Goudsward said.

He said there is a slight chance for "spin-up" tornadoes to form on the edge of the system today, but flooding is a more of a concern.

"It's bad today," Kevin Clark, a spokesman for the Buffalo River National Park, said of flood damage at the park from rains earlier this week.

"We had heavy rains here yesterday. Bill not withstanding, we were already in bad shape."

He said rangers spent Wednesday "scurrying" around the upper Buffalo River campsites, warning visitors to move their cars and be prepared for any flash flooding.

"We are expecting a large pulse of water with this," Clark said. "The best advice is not to come until this passes. It doesn't make much sense to put yourself in jeopardy."

A Section on 06/18/2015

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