Locally heavy rain from a band of thunderstorms that became quasi-stationary in the previous 12-18 hours brought flooding again to the Merced City and some outlying Merced County areas. Thunderstorms developed mid-day Tuesday the 24th and locally heavy rain continued for much of that afternoon and early evening hours.
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Deaths and injuries are direct and indirect together, as the offices filed them. Damage is property and crops in the dollars of the year, not adjusted for inflation, and only where an office estimated it.
The episode as NWS HNX wrote it up.
Locally heavy rain from a band of thunderstorms that became quasi-stationary in the previous 12-18 hours brought flooding again to the Merced City and some outlying Merced County areas. Thunderstorms developed mid-day Tuesday the 24th and locally heavy rain continued for much of that afternoon and early evening hours. Rainfall totals for 24 hours ending by the morning of the 25th showed unofficial reports from 3.5" to 5.9" in the Merced City area. One gauge in the north part of town showed 6.8" in the 48-hour period from the evening of the 23rd to the evening of the 25th. The official gauge at the airport for the 24th as a calendar day was 3.25"! Although skies cleared during the night of the 24th/morning of the 25th, runoff water did not reach creeks until the early morning hours of the 25th with a subsequent crest on Bear Creek after dawn on the 25th. Over 1000 people were evacuated from Merced City and nearby County areas. Bear Creek crested at 19.3 feet / 7653 CFS at 0900 PST 3/25/98...Black Rascal Creek was contributed 4449CFS(148% capacity) early on 3/25 to Bear Creek's total. Damage figures for the 24th/25th assessed at $9.6M due to flooding with agricultural amounts of $1.5M being tentative (likely to go higher with time). This event in Merced County was the 2nd one-in-100 event in two months. Dry Creek, a tributary of the Merced River near Snelling, reached 5358CFS at a height of 15.4' at 1800PST on 3/24/98 as a result of the heavy rains in the area and indicative of the type of stream flows from the foothills of the S.Sierra Nevada onto the valley floor.
The San Francisco radar (KMUX), 105 km away, was scanning. The volume nearest the first event began at 19:59 UTC.
2 flash flood, 1 flood, 1 lightning. Local standard time, as filed.
Torrential thundershowers flooded over 25 surface streets in Merced during the afternoon of the 24th.
Power outage to 700 customers of PG&E.
Eight (8) homes just outside of Planada sustained some flood damage from Miles Creek from heavy shower/thundershower activity. Unofficial rainfall of 1.3" in one hour occurred in the area (with rain continuing afterward).
Over 65 homes and 19 apartments were flooded in and around Merced City as the result of torrential/record-setting rainfall in the previous 18 hours.
After NWS Directive 10-1605, the rules offices file Storm Data by.
Every storm in California in 1998Every state in 1998This day in weather historyWarnings in California, March 1998
NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database, compiled from the National Weather Service’s monthly Storm Data. Complete through 2026-06; NCEI adds each month about 75 days after it ends and revises past years a few times a year. Rebuilt 2026-09-24. Each event’s entry at NCEI: 5637612, 5637611, 5637610, 5637609.