Updraft: July 16, 2011 Archive

Heavy rains and flashing flooding for Saturday morning (July 16)

Posted at 2:34 PM on July 16, 2011 by Mark Seeley (3 Comments)

Early morning hours of Saturday, July 16th brought very heavy rainfalls to parts of Minnesota, including the Twin Cities area. Between 4:00 am and 8:00 am waves of thunderstorms produced very intense rains. Between 5:00 and 6:00 am on the University of Minnesota St Paul Campus 1.77 inches of rainfall was recorded, with over three-quarters of an inch coming in just 15 minutes. The total rainfall between 4:00 and 7:00 am was 3.20 inches. Over a similar time span North St Paul reported 4.79 inches. As a result many roads and intersections were flooded for a time on Saturday morning

Over the 24-hour period from 8:00 am Friday (July 15) to 8:00 am Saturday (July 16) many Twin Cities area observers reported record or near-record amounts of rainfall, including:
4.04 inches at Lakeville
4.85 inches at Plymouth
5.26 inches in Roseville
4.65 inches at Lake Elmo
4.67 inches at Belle Plaine
5.93 inches at Fridley
5.44 inches at Little Canada
4.54 inches at Maplewood

Elsewhere around the state some remarkable amounts of rainfall occurred as well, including:
5.26 inches at Eyota
5.79 inches at Byron
4.54 inches near Rochester
4.13 inches at Mantorville
5.66 inches at Montgomery

Many other observers around the state reported 2 or more inches of rainfall over July 15-16 pushing monthly rainfall totals to very high levels. Some monthly totals for July through the 16th include:
Worthington 7.96 inches
Kimball 8.43 inches
Glenwood 7.48 inches

Since there are still two weeks left in the month it appears some Minnesota observers may exceed 10 inch rainfall totals for the month. We'll see what happens.