The National Weather Service has extended its flash flood warning for large portions of southeast Wisconsin as torrential rainfall it’s labeling as “life threatening flash flooding” continued overnight.
The flood warning is in effect until 5 a.m. Sunday, Aug. 10, for Milwaukee County and eastern Waukesha County and until 5:30 a.m. for Washington and Ozaukee counties.
Flash flooding was reported throughout the area with parts of Interstates 43, 41 and 94 closed as of 3 a.m.
Mitchell International Airport reported just after 3 a.m. that all runways except one was flooded as well as most taxiways and an underpass tunnel.
The National Weather Service reported rain totals of just under 6 inches in Milwaukee early Sunday morning. The highest rain total was an incredible 10 inches reported in Butler, just west of the Menomonee River Parkway.
According to MMSD rain monitors, more than 13 inches had fallen in the 8100 block of W. Florist Ave. in Milwaukee.
The warning initially was set to expire at 2 a.m. but around 1 a.m. the NWS sent out alerts notifying people of the extension as intense rain fell at incredibly fast rates.
Across the Milwaukee area, numerous street and creek flooding, basement flooding, and some stranded vehicles have been reported to the weather service.
The NWS says “life threatening flash flooding of creeks and streams, urban areas, highways, streets and underpasses” is possible due to the amount of rainfall received in such a short amount of time.
As of 1 a.m., between 3 and 6 inches of rain have fallen with additional rainfall amounts of 1 to 2 inches possible in the warned area, the NWS was forecasting.
Over 38,000 We Energies customers continued to be without power just before 2 a.m., according to the company’s outage map.
At 9:12 p.m., local law enforcement reported thunderstorms producing heavy rain and flooding of some roadways in central Milwaukee County, according to the NWS. The two right lanes on Wisconsin 175 North at I-94 are closed.
The storms forced the Wisconsin State Fair to close early and cancel the main stage act. Videos across social media captured the flooding at the fair.
The warning followed a flood watch for most of southern Wisconsin earlier in the evening.
The watch was issued Saturday evening, Aug. 9, and will be in effect through 7 a.m. on Monday, Aug. 11.
Those in Milwaukee can expect several rounds of thunderstorms, rain and wind through Monday morning, Benjamin Sheppard, a meteorologist with the NWS’s Milwaukee office, said.
“This first round of storms today has been to some extent unpredictable in terms of when and where they’ll intensify and how fast they will propagate and move,” Sheppard said.
The NWS predicts the heaviest rounds of rain to fall between Saturday evening and Sunday evening.
Fallen trees were reported by local law enforcement in Menomonee Falls around 5 p.m., Sheppard said.
In the event of a flash flood, the NWS urges the public to heed any road closures. The majority of flood-related fatalities in the U.S. occur in vehicles, Sheppard explained, “turn around, don’t drown.”
Some locations that will experience flash flooding include Milwaukee, West Allis, Wauwatosa, New Berlin, Brookfield, Greenfield, Menomonee Falls, Oak Creek, Muskego, South Milwaukee, Cudahy, Whitefish Bay, Greendale, Brown Deer, St. Francis, Hales Corners, Fox Point, Elm Grove, West Milwaukee and Franklin, according to the NWS.
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Liliana Fannin is a 2025 summer intern at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel covering the Milwaukee suburbs. She can be contacted at lfannin@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: ‘Life threatening’ flash flooding in effect for Milwaukee County, other areas of southeast Wisconsin as heavy storms continue overnight
Reporting by Liliana Fannin and Christopher Kuhagen, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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