Flood Concern Switches to Rivers

Talk about too much of a good thing! The morning April Showers fell in torrential downpour form. I for one marveled at the 3D Doppler Radar scope that Marina showed this morning at 6 AM.

I awakened early to get the latest so I could help Joe Feaganes, Coach of Marshall’s golf team, plan the day ahead for the waterlogged Marshall Invitational that I wrote about earlier this morning. “The eighteenth fairway is a river of water” Joe told at 9 AM, “We have no choice but to call it a day. I hope you have better news for us on Saturday”.

In fact the overall pattern is already showing improvement with Southern Ohio and the region from Roane and Jackson Counties WV northward now officially dropped from the Flood Watch.

If you live in Eastern Kentucky or the Kanawha Valley, Coalfields and Mountains of WV, the Flood Watch continues tonight as a new band of steady soaking rains is arriving late this Friday afternoon. Another .25” to .5” of rain will fall this evening from Milton and Hurricane south and east before tapering to drizzle late tonight.

While this new rain should fall at a slow enough pace to prevent new flooding, runoff will keep streams high tonight, hence the Flood Watch continues as a precaution.

Of course today’s rains have to go somewhere, so the smaller rivers of our region will be on the rise. Right now, the hydrologists at the National weather Service have run their special river models and are targeting the Little Sandy in Carter and Greenup for a near flood stage crest.

I spoke with River Bend golf course owner Harold Tussey around 5 and he indicated the Big Sandy in Argillite was up to the top of the banks along the 8th, 11th, 12th and 17th holes, but "holding it's course", a sure sign the river was at crest.

The river is predicted to crest near the 21 foot flood stage in Grayson this evening, so no serious flooding, but some nuisance high water is expected.

An early evening weather bulletin from the NWS indicated flooding on-going along the Mud River in Cabell County. The Mud is out of its banks near Fudges Creek and along state routes 16 and 26 and is running high through Lincoln County. Credit runoff from today's rains not so much the new evening rains for the Flood Warning on the Mud.

Meanwhile, the Big Sandy River forecasted crest is now far below flood stage from Pikeville through Prestonsburg and Paintsville. The gang at the Jackson NWS office have run their river model and it is showing a much lower crest than it was forecasting yesterday.

All the water that fell will wind up in the Great Kanawha and Mighty Ohio, so stout rises on those main stems will again curtail pleasure boating this 3rd weekend of spring!
I will add rivers and crest information throughout the evening as we work with the NWS to get you water levels and crest forecasts. Briefly, stated, a major flood on small and big rivers IS NOT EXPECTED.

As for the weekend, a cloudy Saturday(55-60) will give way to sunshine on Sunday 9highs in mid 60s).