Houston Flooding
One of the flooding disasters on NOAA’s billion-dollar list: $3.6 billion in losses at 2024 prices ($2.7 billion at the time) and 8 deaths.
What the offices filed during it
The 7 most significant flooding episodes filed in these dates, colored by kind.
- Tornadoes
- Tropical storms and surge
- Floods
- Wind
- Hail
- Winter weather
- Heat and drought
- Cold
- Fire, smoke and dust
- Marine and coastal
- Other
The toll
- Losses, 2024 dollars
- $3.6 billion
- Losses at the time
- $2.7 billion
- Deaths
- 8
The losses and deaths are NCEI’s, counting everything the disaster did. The episodes below are only what the Weather Service filed in its Storm Events record, which counts damage differently and often not at all, so the two never add up and are shown apart.
By state, as filed
Episode by episode
- Flash Flooding and Hail in Oklahoma, April 16, 2016Storms formed over the panhandles under the influence of an upper level low on the 16th. A few of these storms became severe as they entered western Oklahoma. As storms continued on, they morphed into an MCS and dumped several inches of rain across the area.
- Flash Flooding and Flooding in Texas, April 16 to 18, 2016Another in a series of slow moving storms parked across North and Central Texas on the 17th, leading to heavy rain and localized flooding. The most significant flooding occurred in Palo Pinto, Jack, Johnson and Milam counties.
- Flooding in Kansas, April 17, 2016Rainfall during a 24 to 36 hour period resulted in eventual flooding.
- Flash Flooding and Hail in Texas, April 17 to 18, 2016Persistent southeasterly flow in the low levels increased surface dewpoint temperatures to the middle 60s across South Central Texas. This allowed a deep upper level low and surface cold front to cause thunderstorms that produced locally heavy rainfall leading to flash flooding.
- Flash Flooding in Texas, April 18, 2016A blocking pattern set up over the eastern sections of the country with a trough over Texas. Multiple upper level disturbances moved through Texas from the 18th to the 21st providing multiple rounds of thunderstorms.
- Flash Flooding in Louisiana, April 18, 2016A narrow band of showers producing heavy rain developed from Northern Desoto Parish north across Central and Eastern Caddo and western Bossier Parishes during the late afternoon and evening on April 18th, and trained repeatedly over the same areas of Shreveport and Bossier City…
- Flash Flood in Louisiana, April 19, 2016A band of showers and thunderstorms producing heavy rainfall developed during the mid and late afternoon hours on April 19th, and moved repeatedly over the same areas across Northern Bienville and Southern Lincoln Parishes.
More
Every billion-dollar disasterEvery storm of 2016Tornadoes in 2016
Sources
NOAA NCEI, U.S. Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters (2025), https://doi.org/10.25921/stkw-7w73, and the Storm Events Database for the episodes.