Flood Warning Issued For Northeastern Wisconsin, Green Bay Businesses Evacuated

A flood warning has been issued for parts of northeastern Wisconsin after multiple rounds of heavy rains have covered Green Bay streets with water and forced the evacuation of some businesses on the city’s east side.

The National Weather Service issued a flood warning at 4:14 p.m. Wednesday for Brown and Kewaunee counties, northern Calumet County, northeastern Winnebago County, eastern Outagamie County and northern Manitowoc County.

At 4 p.m. emergency management officials in Green Bay reported rising water levels along the Fox and East rivers. Weather service meteorologist Chris Stumpf told Wisconsin Public Radio the area received heavy rainfall Monday night into Tuesday morning. He said that was followed by even heavier precipitation Wednesday.

“This morning they had a pretty big band of showers and some really heavy thunderstorms move across that area and continued probably for two to three hours,” Stumpf said. “And all that rainfall allowed for some flooding to occur.”

In total, he said, Green Bay has gotten around 5 inches of rain since Monday. The flooding has stressed the sewer pies in the region, according to the city of Green Bay, to the point that the public works department has asked people to not use some household appliances, like washing machines and dishwashers, until the rain slows.

Stumpf said that band of rain is moving southward Wednesday evening and is adding to flooding concerns in the southern part of the state. The weather service has issued a severe thunderstorm watch for most of the far-southern portion of Wisconsin in a line from the Mineral Point area eastward to Kenosha.

But Stumpf said the chance for severe weather is less certain than the possibility of heavy rain as a slow moving front works its way south.

“This boundary is going to be kind of hanging around our area, kind of southern Wisconsin, central Wisconsin, until Friday morning,” Stumpf said. “So, the continual chances for showers and thunderstorms is really why we’ve got such a higher flooding threat.”

He said it’s possible that parts of southern Wisconsin will get up to 5 inches of rain through Friday.