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Overnight lightning sets off a rash of alarms
By Mary Madewell
Published October 26, 2009
The Paris area received a little more than three inches of rain overnight along with a lightning show as thunderstorms moved through shortly before midnight.
Storms were precipitated by a mild cold front, which dropped temperatures from a high of 72 on Sunday afternoon to a low of 59 degrees Monday morning.
“We were under a flash flood warning until 2:45 a.m.,” Paris Police Chief Bob Hundley said early today. “I don’t think we had much flooding, but we had a rash of burglar alarms due to the lightning.”
Area lakes are above normal levels but still remain below flood stage. As usual following a heavy rain, the Sulphur River pushed its banks resulting in minor flooding southeast of Cooper and near Talco where the river at 7 a.m. today was 3.5 feet above its flood stage. White Oak Creek, south of Talco, also exceeded its banks by about a foot, according to information from the National Weather Service on-line services.
Water gushes from the release valve at Pat Mayse Lake at the rate of 695 cubic feet per second on its way to the Red River. The lake is six and a half feet above the valve, but well below emergency flood levels of 460 feet above sea level, according to a U.S. Army Corps of Engineer online report issued at 7 a.m. today.
Hugo Lake in Southeast Oklahoma is sending water into the Red River at the rate of 9,963 cubic feet per second. The lake stands at 415.12 feet above sea level, which is 10 feet above normal levels but still well below the flood stage of 437.5 feet. The Red River remains well within its banks and no flood warnings have been issued. Upstream, Lake Texoma remains 20 feet below flood level, which allows the Corps of Engineers to control, for the most part, Red River flooding downstream.
Flash flooding in low lying areas along roadways could remain a cause of concern today and into the night as the area remains under a flash flood watch from the National Weather Service. Another two or three inches of rain is possible throughout.
The Fort Worth office of the National Weather Service gives an 80 percent chance of rain today, dropping to 60 percent tonight and 30 percent Tuesday morning. The sun is expected to peek from behind the clouds Tuesday afternoon, and Wednesday’s forecast is for sunny weather with a high near 71 degrees.
However, rain returns to the forecast Wednesday night with a 50 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms continuing through Friday.
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