Finally, rain!

Friday storms deposit nearly five timely inches across Hamilton County

  • A waterway in a field west of Highway 14 near Marquette flows with muddy water on Friday morning as more than four inches of overnight rain runs off.
    A waterway in a field west of Highway 14 near Marquette flows with muddy water on Friday morning as more than four inches of overnight rain runs off.
  • The ditch on the west side of Highway 14 near the electrical substation north of Aurora stands full of water Friday morning, a result of overnight storms.
    The ditch on the west side of Highway 14 near the electrical substation north of Aurora stands full of water Friday morning, a result of overnight storms.

    Prayers for an end to two years of drought in Hamilton County and across the eastern third of Nebraska were answered in part late last week as almost five inches of rain fell across the county. Storms that passed through the area on Thursday night and Friday dumped heavy rain and caused some minor flooding. 
    Beginning after 9 p.m. on Thursday, the storms that dropped most of the rain that fell on this area came up from Kansas and brought more than five inches of precipitation near Wood River. The storms were accompanied by thunder and lightning but no serious winds. On Friday morning waterways were flowing freely, the edges of some fields showed standing water and several ditches along Highway 14 were full. 
    A check of nine precipitation reporting stations in the county on Monday showed that all of them saw an increase in precipitation over the previous week. The smallest increase was 30 hundredths of an inch at a station 1.5 miles south of Hordville and the largest was 4.941 inches about a mile east-northeast of Aurora. The average rainfall for the week was 4.288 inches across all nine reporting stations. 
    Due to the heavy rains, the National Weather Service issued an areal flood warning for an area which included Hamilton County from 5:26 a.m. until 11:30 a.m. on Friday. Hamilton County Emergency Management Director Kirt Smith, said on Monday there were no reports of damage from the storms, however, he did say some roads in the western part of the county had water running over them on Friday morning. 
    Because of the possibility of flooded roads, the Aurora School District announced it was altering its bus routes for all rural routes that morning. Buses ran their normal routes at the end of the school day, however. 
    Although the sun came out for a time on Friday, the storms weren’t over, however. Tall thunderheads could be seen building up in the sky early Friday afternoon and later that day the same storm system spawned tornadoes that did heavy damage in the western suburbs of Omaha and in the Lincoln/Waverly areas. 
    Heavy rain again fell on Aurora at about 3:45 Friday afternoon and another brief storm followed an hour later.