Powerful storm system heads east

Associated Press

OKLAHOMA CITY

A powerful storm system stretched from Texas to Minnesota on Sunday, bringing heavy rains, flash flooding and the possibility of more severe weather.

Rain-soaked Texas saw flash-flood warnings, high-water rescues and motorists stranded on roads overwhelmed by torrential rains. A river in northwest Oklahoma threatened to top its banks and affected crops, oil wells and rural roads, while 2 to 3 inches of rain fell in three hours in parts of Arkansas, prompting a flash-flood warning.

“We’ve gotten a lot of rain in a short time,” Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management spokeswoman Keli Cain said. “The ground is saturated, so every time we get another big soaking, the rain causes more flash flooding.”

The storm system is the result of a cold front extending from the north central Plains into the southern Plains that pushed up behind warm, moist air, according to Bill Bunting, chief of operations for the National Weather Service Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla.

“It’s a very strong upper-level disturbance,” Bunting said, noting it stretched at one point nearly to the U.S. border with Mexico. “It’s as extensive an area as we’ve seen this year.”

Damaging tornadoes and strong winds blew through the Plains on Saturday and early Sunday, though there were no reports of deaths or injuries.