A strong storm system moving across the central Plains left a father and son dead in Kansas, damaged roads in Oklahoma and led to several water rescues in both states.
Montgomery County, Kansas, Sheriff Bobby Dierks said Wednesday that Dennis Clark Catron Sr., 72, and Dennis Clark Catron Jr., 39, both of Elk City, drowned Tuesday night when their vehicle was swept off a road into an overflowing creek. Their bodies were found inside the vehicle.
"They had apparently stopped their car and put it in park, then were swept off" the road, Dierks said.
Rains also damaged the shoulder of Interstate 44 in southwestern Oklahoma City, according to Oklahoma Department of Transportation spokeswoman Lisa Shearer-Salim, and officials in the college town of Norman said a portion of the city's Main Street buckled due to the rain.
"It's all part of the same general (storm) system, but multiple clusters of storms," said meteorologist John Hart with the National Weather Service's Storm Prediction Center.
The storm in Oklahoma produced 5.06 inches of rain at Will Rogers World Airport in Oklahoma City, breaking the record of 4.62 inches set on Aug. 11, 2008, according to forecaster Vivek Mahale with the National Weather Service.
"Since 1890, when records started, we haven't gotten 5.06 inches on any one calendar day in August," Mahale said.
Meteorologist Andy Kleinsasser in Wichita, Kansas, described the storms as similar to a tropical storm, about 30,000 feet in height, as opposed to the typical storm in the Plains states that are 50,000-70,000 feet in height.
"It was very short in height, and because they're short, they're very, very efficient rain producers," Kleinsasser said.
Kleinsasser said 7 to 11 inches of rain fell in parts of southeastern Kansas, but it wasn't immediately known if any rainfall records were broken.
Officials in both states also reported dozens of people were rescued from vehicles stranded in high water, but no additional deaths.