Houston storm history · April 17 – 18, 2016

Tax Day Flood

A spring storm complex that stalled over northwest Harris County, flooding thousands of homes along Cypress Creek and the upper reaches of Greens and White Oak bayous.

Every bayou, hour by hour

0 ft 13 ft 25.3 ft (this storm's peak) no reading Every cell is a real archived USGS reading for that bayou, that hour — nothing is interpolated between gauges. Color scale is calibrated to this storm alone; it is not comparable across different storms. Hover a cell for the exact value.

No tropical system was involved in the Tax Day Flood. It began on the evening of April 17, 2016, when a line of thunderstorms stalled over northwest Harris County and Waller County and kept regenerating over the same area through the night. By the morning of April 18, parts of the region had received more than a foot of rain, with some totals near 20 inches. One widely cited report measured 23.5 inches at Pattison in Waller County in about 14 hours.

The flooding centered on northwest Harris County. Cypress Creek, Little Cypress Creek, the upper Greens Bayou watershed, White Oak Bayou and Brickhouse Gully all rose quickly. Neighborhoods near FM 1960, Cypresswood, Aldine and Greenspoint flooded, and many residents woke up to water already in their homes.

The Harris County Flood Control District called it one of the most significant flood events in the county since Tropical Storm Allison in 2001. Estimates of flooded homes range from more than 6,000 structures to over 10,000 homes, depending on the area counted and the method used. Eight people died in Harris County. Damage across the region has been estimated at about $2.7 billion.

Tax Day was also an early lesson in how quickly Houston's flat terrain moves from wet streets to flooded homes. Most of the rain fell in a few hours, before most people could react, and many of the flooded homes were outside the mapped floodplain.

Weeks later, more storms hit parts of the same area, and the two floods together pushed Harris County to begin studying the Cypress Creek watershed more closely. A year later, Hurricane Harvey flooded many of the same neighborhoods again.

In the replay, the rise is concentrated in the northwest. Watch Cypress Creek and Greens Bayou climb while bayous south of downtown stay comparatively quiet.

Sources

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