Multiple Historical Flooding Events Impact the Heart of Nebraska in 2019

Central Nebraska is not known for extreme flooding as it is largely covered by widespread farmland and gradually sloping terrain. This past year, two significant flood events impacted the local area, resulting in millions of dollars of damage spread over multiple counties as well as at least one fatality. These events were starkly different, however, as the first came in early spring when soils and rivers were still frozen and the second event was characterized by torrential rainfall in mid-summer, a time when severe weather season and more frequent heavy rainfall events generally start winding down. While it is not uncommon to see a rainfall event of 2 to 3 inches over a 24 hour time period over the course of the spring or summer, the 9.4 inches of rainfall that fell near Elwood Nebraska over a 24 hour period as well as the multiple reports over 7 inches, can all be classified as events with a recurrence period of between 500 and 1000 years according to NOAA Atlas 14 data. Though the spring event did not see this same magnitude of rainfall, the 1.73 inches of rainfall recorded at the central Nebraska Regional Airport was the second highest rainfall ever reported during the month of March and came after a prolonged period of cold weather. A recap of these two historical events as well as how they fit into the framework of the 2018 National Climate Assessment and what we might expect in the future will be presented.