Flood watch brings the Asheville area even closer to record-breaking precipitation
Weekend rainfall looks to be a soaker, potentially causing already-swollen waterways to flood, and bringing Asheville close to the wettest year ever.
Flood watch brings the Asheville area even closer to record-breaking precipitation Weekend rainfall looks to be a soaker, potentially causing already-swollen waterways to flood, and bringing Asheville close to the wettest year ever. Check out this story on citizen-times.com: https://www.citizen-times.com/story/news/local/2018/12/13/wnc-flood-watch-brings-asheville-even-closer-record-precipitation/2303961002/
Mackensy Lunsford, Asheville Citizen Times Published 5:17 p.m. ET Dec. 13, 2018
Drone footage from around Asheville on Monday, Dec. 10, 2018 after snowfall hit the area. (Gabe Swinney, Swinney Photography) Grace Pateras, Asheville Citizen Times
A stick was placed on Lower Brush Creek Road to monitor the rate of flooding as Cane Creek jumped its banks in September's Hurricane Florence. That was one of many storms helping to pad rainfall totals this year.(Photo: Angeli Wright/awright@citizen-times.com)Buy Photo
ASHEVILLE — Don't put your galoshes away yet.
After a wintry weekend, the National Weather Service has issued a new weather notice for the area: a flood watch has been issued for a number of North Carolina counties, including Asheville and surrounding areas.
The watch is in effect Friday morning through Saturday afternoon for Buncombe, Henderson, Avery, Transylvania and a number of other counties in the mountains, as well as portions of the Piedmont.
Areas along and east of the Blue Ridge Mountains will be most likely to see flooding.
We could see rainfall of 1.5-3 inches which, when combined with melting snowfall, could be enough to push streams and rivers out of their banks.
Roadway flooding, particularly in areas that received the greatest amounts of snow in the wake of Diego, is possible.
►Read more:All-time precipitation record in sight? More precipitation coming to waterlogged mountains
The NWS said a deep low-pressure system should bring widespread rainfall to the region later Thursday night through Saturday, with periods of moderate to heavy rain expected on Friday.
That will put the Asheville area even closer to the record for annual precipitation, set in 2013, of 75.22 inches.
As of Wednesday morning, this year's total stood at 71.19 inches, 4.03 inches shy of the record.
National Weather Service meteorologist Scott Krentz said wet weather should continue throughout the rest of the fall and the oncoming winter.
That's consistent with what Sandy LaCorte, another NWS meteorologist, said earlier this week:
"Right now it's looking like another system could come through a couple of days before Christmas, and that could bring a little bit of rain," she said.
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