SerpApi.Org
Tuesday featured catastrophic flooding in portions of northern West Virginia, particularly in Upshur and Lewis counties. How much rainfall occurred Tuesday that resulted in this horrific natural disaster?
Estimated radar rainfall totals over the last 48 hours are shown below. Notice the areas in the purple – those are estimations where 6 inches of rain fell. Keep in mind that well over half of this fell within about an hour. Also, for reference, the average July rainfall amounts for the entire month is between 4 and 5 inches – this means that some towns experienced over a month’s worth of rain over the course of just a few hours. The highest totals occurred in central Upshur and eastern Lewis counties, where rainfall estimates above 6 inches were recorded.
Meanwhile, far south into southern West Virginia, though our region was spared in comparison to the devastating flooding up north, we still saw some significant rainfall in places, particularly in Greenbrier and Fayette counties. Central Greenbrier and north-central Fayette counties saw between 2.5 and 4 inches of rain, mainly over the course of a couple of hours. This was enough to cause some flooding to occur.
Flooding report shown below correspond to where the heavy rainfall occurred. Flooding was widespread in portions of western Randolph, Upshur, Lewis, northern Gilmer and southeastern Ritchie counties, among other areas. However, as of now, the hardest hit areas appear to be in Lewis and Upshur counties where 6+ inches of estimated rainfall occurred.
The flooding could have been worse in southern West Virginia, but some did occur still. Most of these were reports were in low-lying/drainage spots, such as along US-19 in Fayette County near Oak Hill. A couple of flooding reports also occurred in Greenbrier County. Thankfully, our weather pattern will be pretty quiet ahead, allowing folks to begin the slow process of cleaning up.
