PROJECT ALERT NOTICE (VA WV) Flooding continues in central and northern Virginia and eastern West Virginia

Date: Sat, 19 May 2018 17:46:33 EDT

Summary: Widespread persistent rainfall over much of Virginia and eastern West Virginia continues to produce flood conditions.

An additional 2-4 inches of rain has fallen over most of Virginia and eastern West Virginia. The areas primarily impacted from today's rain stretch from Martinsville, VA across the VA/NC border to South Boston, VA and north into the Shenandoah Valley near Harrisonburg, VA and from Richmond, VA northeast across the Northern Neck and Chesapeake Bay. This brings the total for this multi-day event to between 8-15 inches north of Richmond, VA and into the eastern panhandle of West Virginia. The system has now shifted to the east of I-95 and is slowly making it's way north and east.

There are currently 21 sites above the NWS flood stage, 15 in VA and another 6 in WV. Most streams are forecast to crest later today and into the afternoon on Sunday. No peaks of record are forecast across the region and return periods are between 5-20 years (0.2 to 0.06 exceedance probability) for the affected basins.

The VA-WV WSC has continued responding to this event with 5 crews in the field today making flood measurements. A total of 11 discharge measurements have been made today and four water quality samples were collected for the Chesapeake Bay RIM project. One site is not transmitting data, the rest of the network is operational and no significant damage to any gages have been reported from the field.

There are currently plans in place to collect additional water quality samples for the Chesapeake Bay RIM project tomorrow (5/20).