In Indianapolis, site of Sunday’s Indianapolis 500, the forecast calls for an 80% to 90% chance of rain, with thunderstorms expected throughout the day. In Indiana, officials said Saturday that water levels had dropped slightly on a rain-swollen creek in the north of the state where a 4-year-old boy was swept away Thursday. This would cause “near catastrophic flooding” in Fort Smith’s low-lying neighborhoods and business district, it said.Īdditional storms are possible in Arkansas, Oklahoma and Kansas over the next week, according to the latest forecasts. That level would be 3 feet higher than its previous record, which was set in 1945. The National Weather Service updated its peak flooding prediction, and said it now expects the river to reach 41 feet near Fort Smith by late Tuesday night.

The region’s most recent spate of bad weather and flooding has been blamed for at least nine deaths.

Storms have buffeted the central Plains and Midwest all spring, inundating the ground and leaving rain with nowhere to go but into already bloated waterways.

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