Minor flooding begins as rain falls on North Texas

8:35 a.m. One gate open at Possum Kingdom

West of Fort Worth, the remnants from Tropical Depression Bill weren't causing serious issues along the Brazos River.

But rains over the weekend and on Tuesday had forced the Brazos River Authority to open one gate at Possum Kingdom lake.

That had caused the Brazos River to rise from less than a foot to 12.3 feet at the river gauge at Dennis in Parker County. But the river is expected to stay well below the flood stage of 21 feet.

Last month, the Brazos flooded parts of the low-lying Horseshoe Bend in Parker County.

Judi Pierce, a Brazos River Authority spokeswoman, said watching to see what impacts the rain from the tropical depression will have above the big lake northwest of Fort Worth.

"We're just waiting to how much of this hits above PK," Pierce said.

8:15 a.m. ‘Still expecting at least 3 inches’

Fort Worth officials said no major flooding problems had been reported but there were concerns that the water would rise in some low-lying area as the center of the tropical depression moves across the area later this morning.

“The track of the storm has the eye coming right over Tarrant County,” said Juan Ortiz, Fort Worth's emergency management coordinator. "We're still expecting at least 3 inches and that's probably enough to cause some problems. I still think we're pretty early in the process of this storm.”

There had already been some street flooding in Tarrant County and Fort Worth, along Interstate 35W near the N.E. 28th Street bridge and there may be issues along the I-35W construction zone near Western Center Boulevard later in the day.

“I think we're going to be dealing with rain all day,” Ortiz said.

7:55 a.m. Slick roads and minor flooding

The roadways are becoming more troublesome as the rain continues to fall.

Johnson County is reporting that flooding is occurring on numerous roadways and in Dallas, media reports show that cars are driving on the sidewalk at Ledbetter near Interstate 35E.

In Tarrant County high water is being reported at East Loop 820 and Lancaster Avenue.

MedStar reports that it is working three crashes. The crash locations are Loop 820 at Meadowbrook Drive in Fort Worth (a rollover); Loop 820 at Azle Avenue in Lake Worth (rollover); and Texas 360 at Trinity Boulevard in Fort Worth (with entrapment).

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is closely monitoring the rainfall at three of its North Texas lakes - Grapevine, Ray Roberts and Lewisville.

All three are essentially full and can't handle any more water.

Before Wednesday’s morning rain, Grapevine Lake was 25 feet above its conservation level and Lewisville Lake was nearly 12 feet above capacity. Ray Roberts was 8 feet above the conservation level and Joe Pool Lake was at 13 feet above capacity.

And all three release water downstream into the Elm Fork of the Trinity River in Dallas County, where there have been issues with high water over the last month.

“With Ray Roberts and Lewisville, we're watching both very carefully,” said Clay Church, a spokesman for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Fort Worth District.

There had already been enough runoff that the gauge along the main stem of the Trinity River at the Commerce Street bridge was rising.

7:25 a.m. ‘Intense day’ of monitoring lakes

The Tarrant Regional Water District was monitoring the rainfall totals but they weren't high enough to be causing major problems. At least not yet.

“At this point, we're actually holding up pretty well,” said Rachel Ickert, TRWD's water resource engineering director.

But Ickert said “it would be an intense day of monitoring the situation” and managing runoff.

Any impacts along Lake Bridgeport, Eagle Mountain Lake and Lake Worth would likely be felt over the next several days.

"I don't think we're going to see quite the volume we anticipated," Ickert said.

Water continues to accumulate on roadways across the region, including on Interstate 35W at 28th Street in Fort Worth, where traffic was having to slow down to push through the rising water.

At Loop 12 in west Dallas, which was a trouble spot when heavy rain closed an intersection for a days in May, flooding was beginning again.

6:50 a.m. A soggy morning commute

Bill arrived in North Texas early Wednesday after being downgraded to a tropical depression, but he still had plenty of rain left in him.

Rain began falling in the Dallas-Fort Worth area after 4 a.m. and was continuing at a steady pace as the storm marched slowly across North Texas.

The morning commute was soggy at best as water began to puddle on roadways and with anywhere from 2 to 4 inches expected to fall, flooding is expected later in the day.

It’s a much better scenario, however, than appeared likely on Tuesday, when forecasters warned that the storm could dump anywhere from 6 to 12 inches on the region.

Now those totals look more like 2 to 4 inches, said Tom Bradshaw, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Fort Worth.

“The storm was downgraded to a depression overnight ... and hasn’t dropped as much rainfall as we expected,” Bradshaw said.

Greg Fields, a meteorologist with WFAA, said Bill will move through the Metroplex late this morning through the early afternoon.

“Widespread heavy rain likely with flooding being the biggest concern,” Fields said in an email.

Bradshaw said the center of the storm, which is just north of Waco, should arrive in the DFW area between 11 a.m. and noon.

While flash floods will likely occur later in the day, Bradshaw said “if we can keep those crazy numbers from occurring” the area levels should be able to handle whatever Bill can dump on them.

The center is moving straight up Interstate 35W and a flash flood watch is in effect for much of the region. It is expected to rain throughout the day and into Thursday.

“We’re still going to have some spiral rain bands sweeping through the area this afternoon that could easily dump an inch in an hour,” Bradshaw said.

An isolated tornado threat also exists this morning and through the day, Fields said.

Staff writers Tom Uhler and Domingo Ramirez contributed to this report.

This story was originally published June 17, 2015 at 8:17 AM with the headline "Minor flooding begins as rain falls on North Texas."