In Kentucky, extreme flooding engulfs Mayfield and Paducah communities

Slow-moving, torrential rainstorms dropped what was likely the heaviest rainfall in Kentucky’s history Wednesday morning, sweeping water into homes, stranding vehicles and inundating entire neighborhoods, while also deluging parts of southern Illinois and southeast Missouri.

Among the communities hit hardest was Mayfield, Ky., where residents were still making a long-term recovery from a violent tornado that killed 57 people on Dec. 10, 2021. Those involved with rebuilding efforts said that while it was too early to know the extent of the flood damage, it looked like it would have some overlap with the tornado’s devastation.

“You can feel the emotions connected to this right now,” said Pastor Stephen Boyken of His House Ministries in Mayfield. On the road to recovery, “perhaps this will be just a speed bump rather than a detour,” he said.

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Radar estimates suggest the rain fell at an intensity approaching a “1,000-year” flood, with a 0.1 percent chance of occurring in the region in a given year. But in much of the country, including Kentucky, flood threats have become far more serious than federal flood maps suggest, according to First Street Foundation data analyzed by The Washington Post.

In Graves County, Ky., which includes Mayfield, rain totals that once could be expected to fall once a century on average are now more than twice as likely to occur, according to the data.

Nearly a foot of rain fell in parts of Graves County, prompting the National Weather Service to declare it would likely set a new Kentucky record for precipitation within a 24-hour period — 11.28 inches, based on a preliminary report. The previous record, set March 1, 1997, was 10.48 inches.

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Western Kentucky was the area hardest hit, but flash-flood warnings stretched from Cape Girardeau, Mo., and Carbondale, Ill., south through Paducah, Ky., and Paris, Tenn., about 85 miles west of Nashville Wednesday morning. By midafternoon, many of the warnings were discontinued as the rain moved away.

“Please pray for Mayfield and areas of Western Kentucky impacted by significant flooding from last night’s storms,” tweeted Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear (D). “We’re working to assess the damage and respond. Just like every challenge we’ve faced, we will be there for all those affected. We will get through this together.”

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“Water rescues are taking place in some areas due to people driving into flooded areas,” the National Weather Service in Paducah wrote in a midmorning bulletin. “There are numerous roads across the area that have water over them and are closed. Many homes and businesses are inundated with water at this time.”

In Mayfield, many residents are still in temporary housing as work continues to rebuild homes destroyed in the 2021 tornado. Much of the town’s main strip still has not been rebuilt, said Tyler Alverson, minister of Seven Oaks Church.

“They said a good portion of the town is in pretty bad shape,” Alverson said.

The torrents prompted multiple flash flood emergency alerts, the most severe alerts for extreme rainfall.

“This is a PARTICULARLY DANGEROUS SITUATION. SEEK HIGHER GROUND NOW!” the Weather Service office in Paducah warned in several areas in western Kentucky, including Kevil and West Paducah, as well as the area around Mayfield.

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The Weather Service accurately predicted the flooding, including a Level 3 out of 4 risk of flash flooding and excessive rainfall in its outlooks 24 hours in advance.

How much rain fell

An 18 hour loop of estimated precipitation accumulation from last night through early today. After evening storms across western #KYwx dropped about 1-2 inches, there was a lull until LLJ kicked in and contributed to prodigious & intense rainfall! pic.twitter.com/G5sMlMPYtT

Amounts of 4 to 8 inches were widespread in western Kentucky, with locally higher amounts up to around a foot.

The Weather Service reported the 6.9 inches fell in Paducah, its second-highest daily rainfall on record. An exceptional 2.32 inches of rain fell between 6:53 a.m. and 7:53 a.m.; that’s the third-greatest single-hour rainfall total recorded at the airport.

As much as 4.4 inches fell at the airport during a three-hour window. That can be considered a 100-year rain event, meaning less than a 1 percent likelihood of happening in any given year. (It’s estimated that 4.2 inches in three hours would qualify as a 100-year rain event, according to advanced statistics maintained by the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration.)

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A nearby station in Paducah picked up 5.87 inches in six hours, which would be a 200-year rain event.

Another week, another major flood event in the United States. The 6-12+ inches of rain that fell in Illinois & Kentucky has an Average Recurrence Interval of 200+ years in spots…meaning there’s a 0.5% chance of this occurring during any given year. #ILwx #KYwx pic.twitter.com/os62kx1ga9

It’s estimated that the threshold for a 1,000-year rain event, or one that has a 0.1 percent chance of striking a location in a particular year, is 9.83 inches in 24 hours. Therefore, the 11-inch total in Graves County would qualify it as a 1,000-year storm.

What drove the heavy rain

The rain developed along a stagnant boundary known as a stationary front. It marks the divide between a cooler, drier air mass to the northeast and a warmer, moisture-rich Gulf of Mexico air mass banked to the southwest.

That stationary front serves as the focus for downpours, which ride along it like rail cars on a track. That induces what meteorologists call “training,” which is when exceptionally heavy rainfall continues to move over the same area.

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It also is a recipe for the process by which humid air rides up and over a shallower lip of cooler, denser air. That acts as a ramp to pump moisture high into the atmosphere, forming clouds and bands of intense precipitation. As long as the boundary remains in place, the resulting bands of rain do, too.

Every column of atmosphere contains about two inches or more of water vapor, so when that air mass is continually trucked into storms, churned through and replaced, it offers a nonstop source of moisture to fuel torrential rainfall.

If we look at a simulated profile of the atmosphere, it shows that the air is saturated about eight or nine miles high in the atmosphere. In addition to supporting heavy rainfall rates, locally topping 3 inches per hour, it also leads to high precipitation efficiency. That means that because the air is moist, the edge of the raindrop doesn’t evaporate on the way down to the ground, and more water reaches the surface.

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Around Paducah, where records date to 1949, eight of the 10 heaviest one-hour rainfalls have happened in the past 20 years. That’s largely a sign of an atmosphere becoming increasingly moisture-loaded, a well-established and predictable effect of human-caused climate change.

Extreme rain events have prompted 11 flash flood emergencies in the past 11 days across the Lower 48 states, according to Heather Zons, a meteorologist with the Weather Channel. Several of these emergencies occurred in the Northeast, including in New York’s Hudson Valley and Vermont, which were swamped by flooding last week. Several more flash flood emergencies peppered the southeast.

🌧️11 FLASH FLOOD EMERGENCIES IN 11 DAYS 🌧️

Starting from New York state last Sunday to this morning in Kentucky, summertime flooding has taken on a whole new meaning... pic.twitter.com/uBi7udTOsj

The flooding in Kentucky comes just a year after severe flooding killed 40 people and left hundreds of families homeless in the eastern part of the state.

Misty Thomas, executive director of the Red Cross of Western Kentucky, said she was hopeful while she awaited more information on flood damage to learn if the situation was as dire as last summer’s flooding: “From what I understand, it is not.”

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