The August Start and a Debby Recap

8/10/24

The last several weeks I’ve done a weekly drought update. With the rains to start August and what’s occured after the last drought update Tuesday, there will be lots of changes to the next drought update. So, no sense in hashing over what it is now old data.

Instead, we’ll jump to what’s occured over what was. What was in terms of the last drought update with data through the 5th.

Now let’s look at the last couple of days.

First, let’s start with August 7th, pre-Debby impacts. A day that saw localized heavy areas of rain

That day saw over 1″ at Canaan Heights, over 2.3″ at Spruce Knob

That pop up storm, dropped 2.3″ in a hour as seen from the graph. A radar view of those storms below.

Those were the pop up, stationary dumpers that pound the sane location before meandering away and dying off. This occured in localized pockets Wednesday. Also, areas east near Bedford,Allegany, Washington, Fulton counties saw some heavy action with that.

Then in comes Debby on Thursday. Preluded by showers, drizzle, fog through the day as the onset of steady -moderate to areas of heavy rain overnight in to Friday a.m.

Radar views

A much more widespread event was the remnants of Debby. Modeling handled very well in both timing and amounts across the Alleghenies. Mesoscale modeling also hinted at heavier 4″+ amounts along and east of the Allegheny Front that did occur and some areas further saw in excess of 6-8″ amounts. Greater flooding impacts there obviously.

Debby Tallies

A few local final tallies

Bittinger 2NW Valley 2.62″

Grantsvilles 2 ESE 2.79″

these types of numbers pretty consistent

Lots of the Wv high ground in the 3″ range with areas east of the Allegheny front with pops of 4″ plus. Like Kile Knob reporting 4.82″

Some of the heavy rain from Debby overlapping the localized storms of Wednesday, giving those areas over 5″ on the week. Kile Knob at 5.18″, Spruce Knob at 5.38″

Giving a August start through today looking like this.

the drought monitor overlay is added on the map.

the departure from average for the first 3rd of August

Those D3 drought areas pretty much bullseyed. Anywhere in blue is beginning August with above average precip.

With the greatest anomaly above east of the Alleghenies.

Some tallies there this week

Speaking of Green Ridge, a few shots of 15 Mile Creek on Friday

and Sideling Hill Creek at Northcraft

much higher water levels in this areas as they were under the gun with the localized areas of heavy rain Wednesday, and heaviest impacts of Debby.

Across the Alleghenies where amounts weren’t as heavy, rates a bit lower, our overall dry soil was able to absorb quite a bit and limit excess runoff. That accompanied by very low stream levels, stream and river levels were not all that impressive.