Little street flooding day after storms roll through Wichita

Wichita’s storm water drainage system generally handled Tuesday’s waves of heavy rain well, a city official said.

Several streets around the city flooded as a result of widespread hard rains, said Jim Hardesty, interim storm water division manager, but the water receded quickly once the rains ended.

“The drainage system functioned at capacity, but was temporarily overwhelmed,” Hardesty said at a City Hall briefing Wednesday morning.

Traditional problem areas such as Bleckley in College Hill and South Meridian near Pawnee flooded again Tuesday night.

“All of the flooding was temporary and receded shortly after the rain stopped just after midnight,” Hardesty said.

Overnight street flooding had eased in Wichita as the Wednesday morning commute began, a Sedgwick County emergency dispatcher said, though portions of northern Sumner County were dealing with flooded roads.

Officially, 2.75 inches of rain fell in Wichita on Tuesday night, National Weather Service meteorologist Jaclyn Ritzman said. Radar estimated 4 to 5 inches fell Tuesday in parts of south Wichita, Haysville and southern Sedgwick County to Clearwater.

Rainfall totals close to or exceeding 3 inches were common throughout the city and in southern portions of the county, according to data submitted to the CoCoRahs, the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail and Snow Network.

Rainfall totals that high are no surprise, Ritzman said.

“We did have a number of those (rain) cells train over Sedgwick County,” Ritzman said, referring to a pattern of repeated storms tracking over the same area.

Crews had to remove 47 trucks of water from a road construction site on 31st Street South, where new drainage pipes are being installed as the road is being widened, Hardesty said.

While forecasters warned of a significant tornado threat leading up to Tuesday, only one brief rope tornado was reported — four miles west-southwest of Mayfield in Sumner County. Several thunderstorms produced lowerings called wall clouds that are common precursors to tornadoes. But only five tornadoes were reported across the country Tuesday night, and just one of those was in Kansas.

Wichita was spared by a few degrees of tilt in the air rotating near the ground, Ritzman said. The air was rotating parallel to the dry line, rather than perpendicular.

Had the rotation been more perpendicular, “it could have been a very different situation” Tuesday night, Ritzman said. “Little, subtle changes can result in big difference in what we get.”

Perpendicular rotation would have set the stage for tornadoes, and — because the dry line parked right over Wichita — those tornadoes would have marched right into the city. Instead, the string of thunderstorms just produced wave after wave of heavy rain. Some were strong enough to deliver hail as well.

That made for a messy, accident-riddled afternoon commute, police said. Many people left work early in an attempt to get home before severe weather hit, but the first of the heavy rains hit west Wichita at about 3:30 p.m.

“The combination of the heavy rain, the hail, the reduced visibility – it was nuts,” Ritzman said.

There were 19 traffic accidents between 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. Tuesday, according to Sedgwick County emergency communications.

People were “trying to get home in a hurry” just as the rain hit, Wichita police Sgt. Nikki Woodrow said.

So many collisions were happening in a short amount of time “officers just couldn’t keep up,” she said.

Flooding wasn’t the only issue Tuesday. Hail the size of hen’s eggs, 2 inches in diameter, fell in downtown Wichita on Tuesday night, Ritzman said, and golf ball hail was reported at McConnell Air Force Base and elsewhere in south Wichita.

Winds as high as 80 miles an hour were reported in Labette County in southeast Kansas late Tuesday night, according to the weather service.

The 2.75 inches of rain wiped out Wichita’s precipitation deficit for the year, Ritzman said. With 7.77 inches of rain so far this year, Wichita is now .91 above normal.

This story was originally published April 27, 2016 at 7:28 AM with the headline "Little street flooding day after storms roll through Wichita."