The National Weather Service had 40 active flash flood alerts posted Saturday across Florida, Guam, Iowa, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri and Wisconsin, down slightly from Friday’s 41 warnings — but Nebraska, which joined the list a day earlier, has cleared, even as fresh warnings emerged in Kentucky and the Mariana Islands.
In south-central Kentucky, the National Weather Service office in Jackson issued a Flash Flood Warning for northeastern Laurel County until 9 a.m. EDT after Doppler radar showed thunderstorms had already dropped 1 to 2 inches of rain, with up to 1 additional inch possible. The agency warned that flash flooding was ongoing in the area.
In Illinois, the threat has shifted from flash flooding to river flooding: the National Weather Service upgraded its forecast for Thorn Creek at Thornton, in Cook County, to minor flooding of increased duration, affecting the stretch from near Glenwood downstream to the confluence with the Little Calumet River.
The Pacific remains part of the same story. Guam, Rota, Tinian and Saipan are under continued flash flood warnings through late Tuesday night, with the National Weather Service noting shower and thunderstorm coverage is expected to increase, raising the risk of excessive runoff that could flood rivers, creeks and low-lying areas.
Central Iowa continues to carry the heaviest concentration of alerts in the Midwest, with Story, Polk, Jasper and Marshall counties all listed among the affected areas — a signal that the flooding threat first flagged in Des Moines a day earlier has not let up, even as the statewide alert count elsewhere held roughly steady.
Across the warned areas, the National Weather Service is repeating its standard flood safety guidance: turn around, don’t drown when encountering flooded roads, since most flood deaths occur in vehicles. For warnings tied to rising rivers, the agency says residents along affected waterways should take immediate precautions to protect life and property.
With 40 alerts still active across nine states and four Pacific islands, the flooding threat that has gripped the Gulf Coast, Midwest and Mariana Islands for days shows only marginal signs of easing. The Kentucky and Illinois warnings suggest the pattern is shifting eastward and toward slower-moving river flooding even as flash flood risk persists in Iowa and the Western Pacific.