Lincoln’s wettest day on record is now a crest heading down the Missouri River

A single night of rain on September 30 broke a Lincoln, Nebraska, record that had stood since 1910, and the water that fell across the eastern part of the state is now working its way down the Missouri River toward central Missouri. Forecasters expect the river at Glasgow to peak above 27 feet early next week, well over the 25-foot flood stage there.

Omaha crews logged dozens of water rescues in the same storm. The river part of the story is slower, because a crest takes days to travel.

Record rainfall in Lincoln

The National Weather Service office in Omaha, in its summary of the September 30 flooding, lists 6.15 inches at a gauge four miles west of Lincoln and calls it an all-time record, breaking the 5.45 inches measured on August 29, 1910. The same summary gives 5.77 inches for the official Lincoln Airport observation, which would also top the 1910 mark.

Local outlets differ on where the 6.15 inches was measured. 10/11 NOW’s meteorologist Bill Rentschler reported it as the Lincoln Airport total, and the ABC17 forecast relays the same wording. Either way, the day is the wettest on record for the city, and the margin over 1910 is between roughly 0.3 and 0.7 inches.

The rain was not confined to Lincoln. The weather service lists 8.27 inches at a site in Millard on the west side of Omaha and 8.10 inches near Elkhorn, while Omaha’s Eppley Airfield saw 4.71 inches. West Papillion Creek at Elkhorn reached 13.02 feet, above its previous record of 12.7 feet, and Wehrspann Lake climbed to 1,104.8 feet, about 1.6 feet past its old mark.

Water rescues in Omaha and Lincoln

Omaha’s Assistant Public Works Director Jim Theiler told The Reader that rainfall “pretty much citywide exceeded a 100-year event.” The Omaha fire department took roughly 80 water-rescue calls between 11 p.m. and 2 a.m., and about 50 people were brought out near 62nd and J Streets, where water ran six to eight feet deep. The weather service log shows the first calls arriving before midnight, with vehicles submerged at 11th Street and Cornhusker Highway at 11:15 p.m. and the fire department pulling people from cars near 168th and Harrison Street by 11:30.

In Lincoln, Lincoln Fire and Rescue’s water team moved about 20 people out of businesses near 11th Street and Cornhusker Highway on Wednesday night, ran boat rescues at 9th and Garber and at Northwest 31st and Airport Road, and pulled four people from two partially submerged minivans near South First Street and Harwood Court on Thursday morning. Battalion Chief Mark Majors said creeks crested in part because runoff backed water up, not from the rain alone, and Little Salt Creek rose past 25.6 feet, roughly four feet above its previous record, according to The Reader. Omaha Mayor John Ewing said the city had endured one of the wettest Septembers in its history before the rescues began.

Missouri River crest forecasts at Jefferson City, Boonville and Glasgow

Rain upstream does not reach the lower Missouri at once. ABC17’s Nate Splater, writing on October 1, laid out the forecast crests: nearly 22 feet at Jefferson City, just under minor flood stage; nearly 24 feet at Boonville by Sunday, at minor flood stage; and more than 27 feet at Glasgow from Sunday into Monday, which is moderate flooding. The regional totals behind that forecast were 3 to an isolated 10 inches across Nebraska, Iowa and Kansas on September 30, and 6 to 9 inches across parts of the three states over the past week.

The weather service’s Kansas City office put out a flood warning for the river from Napoleon and Waverly down through Glasgow and Boonville, running through the evening of October 7. For Glasgow it forecasts a crest of 27.9 feet on Monday morning, a level at which many agricultural levees are overtopped and rural areas flood widely, and a fall below flood stage late Tuesday. When the warning was written on Wednesday afternoon, the gauge read 16.8 feet, still about 11 feet short of flood stage.

A dry week that lets the river fall

The crest is not expected to be followed by a second rise. Splater noted that little to no rain is forecast for mid-Missouri or the upstream basin over the next week, so the river should peak and then recede rather than keep climbing. Lincoln’s own outlook points the same way: KLKN’s Houston Hall described a weekend with sunny skies and cool temperatures.

Glasgow read 16.8 feet on Wednesday against a 27.9-foot forecast, and the warning stays in force through October 7.

This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.

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