PROJECT ALERT NOTICE (SD) PROJECT ALERT NOTICE (SD) Dakota WSC Flooding

Date: Fri, 13 Sep 2019 12:43:33 EDT

Summary: The Daily Republic News puts the latest storm event into context “…the entire region of southeastern South Dakota has been drenched by two big storms packing a lot of punch in the rain it carried." Areas around Mitchell, SD have seen the heaviest rainfall with the National Weather Service (NWS) reporting 7.09 inches of rain at the airport in 48 hours. These rains falling on a saturated region with the James River Near Mitchell, SD being above NWS flood stage since mid-March, 2019.

https://www.mitchellrepublic.com/news/weather/4658469-Storm-rainfall-climbs-to-more-than-7-inches-in-Mitchell

The median flows for this time of year for the James River near Scotland, SD is around 100 cfs. Currently the flows at this gage are showing to exceed 30,000 cfs.

https://nwis.waterdata.usgs.gov/sd/nwis/uv?cb_00060=on&format=gif_stats&site_no=06478500&period=&begin_date=2019-03-01&end_date=2019-09-13

At or above Peak of Record (POR) conditions are occurring at 10 gages within southeastern South Dakota, with one gage having 91 years of record. Ratings are being extended for 5 sites.

Gage-heights at thirty (30) U.S. Geological Survey streamgages operated by the Dakota WSC in South Dakota (SD) are exceeding National Weather Service (NWS) minor to major flood stages. The distribution of the thirty sites experiencing flooding can be observed at the WaterWatch link below. All data section staff in the Huron and Pierre Offices were deployed in the field today.
Stakeholders are being informed of our activities through updates to NWISWeb, NWSChat, email, and phone calls.


Map of flood and high flow condition (South Dakota)