Flooding in Iowa, June 21 to 23, 1998

Another round of a seemingly endless series of mostly nocturnal mesoscale convective systems hit iowa on the 20th and 21st. Fortunately, it shifted to the northeast part of the HSA, avoiding almost completely the saturated basins in the central part of the state. Rainfall of 2 to 5 inches was widespread across the upper Iowa and Cedar River basins, causing the first flooding of the month on these basins. Beaver Creek at New Hartford reached a crest of 11.9 feet on the 22nd, which would have flooded a large part of the town if not for the levee control system built after the 1993 floods. At Marshalltown, the Iowa River crested on the 22nd with the 7th highest crest on record. Meanwhile, runoff from earlier storms caused the South Skunk River at Oskaloosa in Mahaska County to crest at the 3rd highest crest of record. Once again, flooding of basements and agricultural flooding was widespread over the northeast half of Iowa. The major rivers affected were the Winnebago, West Fork of the Cedar, Beaver Creek at New Hartford, and the Skunk. By this point in the month it became difficult to separate all of the flooding events. To give at least some idea of extent of crop damage to this point, it was estimated losses for the state were in excess of $100 million dollars.