Weekend storms bring record-breaking rainfall

Lightning strikes downtown Saturday night in San Antonio. Lightning strikes downtown Saturday night in San Antonio. Photo: Courtesy Photo: Courtesy Image 1 of / 5 Caption Close Weekend storms bring record-breaking rainfall 1 / 5 Back to Gallery

Sunshine returns to South Texas today after powerful weekend storms put on a spectacular lightning show and delivered torrential rains that flooded roads and shattered a century-old record.

Much of the city was soggy Sunday morning after thunderstorms soaked the area overnight. San Antonio International Airport officially recorded 2.36 inches of rain, easily topping the previous record for the day, 1.58 inches, set in 1900.

National Weather Service forecasters said the heaviest-hit area of San Antonio was Probandt Avenue near San Pedro Creek, which got 5.81 inches. Unofficially, amounts of 6 inches were reported south of the city.

A bolt of lightning sparked a fire at a South Side home in the 800 block of Avant Avenue just before 10:30 p.m., officials said. There was no heavy damage or high-water rescues reported to NWS.

CPS Energy reported 14,460 customers were without power at the peak of outages reported during the storm. By about 5 p.m. Sunday, 325 customers reported still not having electricity.

Forecasters said the rain was brought by two storm systems that developed in the area — one that began over downtown and moved northeast across the city, and another that developed over Medina County and moved east. The latter storm brought most of the rain, forecasters said.

Officials tallied more than a dozen street closures throughout the city due to flooding. Affected thoroughfares included Interstate 35 near San Pedro Avenue and U.S. 281 South near the Medina River, officials said. Parts of Interstate 10 on the East and West sides also were closed due to flooding.

Today is expected to be clear and dry, with high temperatures in the mid-90s and lows in the 70s. Temperatures the rest of the week are forecast to be much the same, and skies should be partly cloudy. A slight chance of rain is expected back in the forecast on Thursday.

Heavy rains hit North Texas cities as well. According to the Associated Press, rescuers on Sunday recovered the body of a man who was swept away by a rain-swollen creek Saturday in Fort Worth, but another man remained missing in east Dallas.

aley@express-news.net

Twitter: @aley_EN

Michelle Casady contributed to this report.