April 28, 2025
Forecasters are warning of potentially deadly flash flooding and strong tornadoes as more rounds of thunderstorms are poised to strike parts of the Midwest and South.
The potent storm system will bring the threat of “significant, life-threatening flash flooding” starting Wednesday, according to the Weather Prediction Center, a part of the National Weather Service.
The new flood threat also comes as residents in parts of Michigan continue to dig out from a weekend ice storm.
Thunderstorms with multiple rounds of heavy rain are expected in parts of Texas, the lower Mississippi Valley, and the Ohio Valley beginning at midweek and lasting through Saturday. Forecasters warn the storms could track over the same areas repeatedly and produce heavy rains and dangerous flash floods capable of sweeping cars away.
Parts of Arkansas, west Tennessee, western Kentucky, and southern Indiana are at an especially high risk for flooding this week, the weather service said.
Rain totaling up to 15 inches is forecast over the next seven days in northeastern Arkansas, the southeast corner of Missouri, western Kentucky, and southern parts of Illinois and Indiana, the weather service warned.
“We’re potentially looking at about two months of rain in just a handful of days,” said Thomas Jones, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Little Rock, Arkansas.
Little Rock’s monthly average rainfall for March is just under 5 inches. The rainfall that eastern and northeastern Arkansas could see is something only expected once every 25 to 50 years.
The copious amount of rain in the forecast is rare, Jones said, and moisture from the Gulf is boosting the amount of precipitation the thunderstorms could release.
