Cars submerged in water in Dallas as flash floods hit Southern U.S.

Heavy rain and flash floods have inundated Dallas and northern Texas, turning streets into rivers and submerging cars as rain lashes the Southwestern U.S.

Showers started Sunday evening as part of a “multi-day heavy rainfall event,” according to the National Weather Service, canceling and delaying hundreds of flights.

In the Dallas area, 7.8 inches of rain was recorded in just three hours, the highest rate of rainfall in the deluge so far. Overall, nearly 10 inches of rain has been recorded on the east side of Dallas. If the Dallas-Fort Worth area records over 10.33 inches of rain, it will be the wettest August on record.

The rain is expected to shift toward the lower Mississippi Valley later in the week, according to the weather service.

Jarring photos and videos on social media show streets overwhelmed with water and cars submerged in window-high floods.

The Interstate 30 freeway is swollen with water in videos shared online, with tractor-trailer trucks and cars halted and some partly submerged early Monday in downtown Dallas, well before morning rush hour.

"I’ve been here over an hour. … I almost made it home," Jimmy Dede Mccoy said in a video livestreamed on Facebook before 4 a.m. Monday. "Everybody’s already out of their cars stuck. That’s [I-30] though, towards downtown. Looks like a river."

The Fort Worth Fire Department said Monday afternoon it had responded to 133 high-water calls since 10 p.m. Sunday, with crews at the scenes of 38 different high-water calls.

A flood watch remains in effect for North Texas through 8 p.m. local time and for Central Texas through 7 p.m., according to the National Weather Service. The weather service reported that Tarrant and Dallas counties got 8 to 12 inches of rain.

Dangerous and life-threatening flash flooding was expected to last through 1 p.m. local time, the weather service said.

"Rain continues to fall with dangerous flash flooding currently ongoing across Dallas County! AVOID getting out on the roads if possible!" the weather service tweeted early Monday.

The weather service warned residents to avoid driving through flooded or barricaded roads, stay out of areas subject to flooding and take alternative routes to work Monday morning, sharing the message “Turn around, don’t drown.”

Dallas police also urged caution for motorists, tweeting Monday, "NEVER drive into high water."

The severe weather has also affected flights. Earlier Monday, ground stops were ordered at Dallas-Fort Worth and Dallas Love Field airports, where thunderstorms were delaying departures.

So far, 141 flights have been canceled at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport, and over 600 flights have been delayed, according to FlightAware data. At Dallas Love Field, 72 flights have been canceled and 55 have been delayed so far.

The rain brings some much-needed respite to drought-hit Texas, as the Dallas-Fort Worth area has been nearly 17 inches below normal over the past 12 months, according to the National Weather Service.

Dallas just had its second-longest dry streak, with 67 days of no rain from June to early August. The latest deluge has wiped out nearly 70% of the area's 2022 rainfall deficit to date.

Thirteen million people remained under flood alerts Monday morning from Texas to west Mississippi.

The deluge comes as 18 million were under flood alerts over the weekend across the Southwest from Arizona to New Mexico to Texas.

Heavy rain has been pouring down on some of America's driest areas in recent weeks.

In Tucson, Arizona, fire crews rescued 21 adults and a baby over a river canyon full of rushing water on Aug. 12. In California’s Death Valley National Park, flash flooding stranded 1,000 people in early August.