CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The National Weather Service expects several areas of the Mountain State to see flooding beginning Saturday night and stretching into Sunday from a strong rainy system that will hit the state Saturday morning.
The latest models, as of Friday morning, were showing the rain will enter the state in the southwestern coalfields Saturday morning and quickly spread across the state reaching the Eastern Panhandle by midday.
Most of the entire state will be under a flood watch. The weather service has already posted flood warnings for the Tug Fork in Mingo County, the Guyandotte in Lincoln County and the Coal River in Boone, Lincoln and Kanawha counties.
National Weather Service Meteorologist Tom Mazza said Friday’s models of the amount of rain expected decreased slightly from the four inches of rain predicted in Thursday’s outlook.
“It’s kind of nestled between two and three inches. That’s fairly widespread, pretty much across the southern part of the state,” Mazza said.
Wyoming County Office of Emergency Services Director Timmy Ellison said two inches of rain would send small streams and creeks out of their banks in his county because the county is waterlogged from last week.
“The low-lying streams are still pretty full,” he told MetroNews Friday. “We’re expecting the low-lying areas (to flood), asking the people to be vigilant and take precautionary measures.”
He’s also concerned about the Guyandotte River.
“The Slab Fork dumps into the Guyandotte. Laurel Fork dumps into the Guyandotte. You have all kinds of streams like Castle Creek, Indian Creek, they all dump into the Guyandotte,” Ellison said.
The rain will have a certain amount of intensity, Mazza said.
“It looks more like a steady with that embedded heavier rain. It won’t quite be that summertime thunderstorm intensity,” Mazza told MetroNews. “It will be moderately intense.”
Mazza said intensity and duration are keys when it comes to flooding. He said the approaching system will have both. Mazza said its actual movement once it gets here will be important.
“The trick of the tail is how much the front moves up and then back down,” he said. “If it moves a little bit then you’re talking higher amounts and the most focused action across central and the most southern portions of the state.”
Ellison said his county is preparing as best it can.
“It just something that everyone is accustomed to in southern West Virginia—it’s flooding. Homes are built near the streams. It’s great until we have issues like this,” Ellison said.