Heavy rainfall and flash floods have inundated Dallas and northern Texas, turning streets into rivers of water and submerging cars as rain continues to lash the southwestern U.S.
Showers started Sunday evening as part of a “multi-day heavy rainfall event” in the region, according to the National Weather Service, prompting hundreds of flight cancellations and delays.
In the Dallas area, 7.8 inches of rain was recorded in just three hours, marking the highest rate of rainfall in the deluge so far. Overall, nearly 10 inches of rain has been recorded on the east side of Dallas. If the Dallas Fort-Worth area records over 10.33 inches of rain, it’ll be the wettest August on record.
The rain is expected to shift towards the lower Mississippi Valley later in the week, according to the weather service.
Jarring photos and videos on social media show streets overwhelmed with water and cars submerged in window-high floods.
In videos shared online, the I-30 freeway could be seen swollen with water, with tractor trailer trucks and cars halted and some partially submerged early Monday in downtown Dallas, well before morning rush hour.
“I’ve been here over an hour… I almost made it home,” Jimmy Dede Mccoy said in a video livestreamed on Facebook before 4 a.m. Monday. “Everybody’s already out of their cars stuck. That’s (the I-30) though, towards downtown. Looks like a river.”
As of Monday morning, all of North and Central Texas remained under a flood watch with areas along the I-20 corridor under a flash flood warning. The NWS reported that Tarrant and Dallas Counties received eight to 12 inches of rain.
Dangerous and life threatening flash flooding is expected to last through 1 p.m. local time, the NWS said.
“Rain continues to fall with dangerous flash flooding currently ongoing across Dallas County! AVOID getting out on the roads if possible!” the weather service tweeted early Monday.
The weather service warned locals to avoid driving through flooded or barricaded roads, stay out of areas subject to flooding and take alternate routes to work Monday morning, sharing the phrase “Turn around don’t drown.”
The Dallas Police Department also tweeted early Monday “Please avoid roadways if possible. Emergency services are asking everyone to be safe.”
The severe weather has also impacted flights. Earlier on Monday, ground stops were ordered at the Dallas Fort Worth and Dallas Love Field airports, now seeing departure delays due to thunderstorms.
So far 141 flights have been canceled at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport and over 600 flights have been delayed, according to FlightAware data. At Dallas Love Field, 72 flights have been cancelled and 55 delayed so far.
The rainfall brings some much needed respite to drought-hit Texas, as the Dallas Fort-Worth area has been nearly 17 inches below normal rainfall over the past 12 months, according to NWS.
Dallas just had its second longest dry streak with 67 days of no rain from June to early August. The latest deluge has wiped out nearly 70% of the area’s 2022 rainfall deficit year to date.
Thirteen million people remain under flood alerts Monday morning from Texas to west Mississippi.
The deluge comes as 18 million were under flood alerts over the weekend across the Southwest, stretching from from Arizona to New Mexico to Texas.
Heavy rains have been pouring down on some of America’s driest areas in recent weeks.
In Tucson, Arizona, fire crews rescued 21 adults and a baby over a river canyon full of rushing water on Aug. 12. In California’s Death Valley National Park, flash flooding stranded 1,000 people in early August.
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