CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Amid the heavy snowfall across the state, problems persist with high water. Flooding is reported along most of the state’s mid-sized rivers like the Buckhannon, Guyandotte, Tygart, and Tug Fork. Those are starting to drain into the larger rivers like the Kanawha, Monongahela, and Ohio and there are problems.
“At the beginning of the storm, there was snow melt plus the rain and that got the small streams and creeks up,” said John Sikora, a hydro-meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Charleston. “That flowed into the rivers and brought them up as well. Now we have the rivers full and the streams and creeks have nowhere to flow into so they are backing up.”
The situation created immense problems in low lying areas along the Buckhannon River at Buckhannon and the Tug Fork in Williamson. The high water shutdown numerous roads across West Virginia and inundated some homes and businesses, but not as many as it could have.
“This would probably be more of minor to moderate type flooding,” Sikora said.
Sikora expected it would take a day or two for the large navigable rivers to fall, but anticipated the streams and creeks would go back down rather rapidly now that the rain has turned to snow and temperatures are falling. The melting process should resume this weekend with warm daytime temperatures and cold temperatures at night. Sikora called that the best scenario for the snow melt.
Along the Greenbrier River large chunks of broken ice raced by at Caldwell. Sikora said they were keeping an eye on it, but didn’t expect it to be a serious problem.
“We did have some reports of ice jams on Slaty Fork up in Pocahontas County on the upper end of the Elk. Those have broken up. We’re watching some ice on the Greenbrier as well, but right now it’s not causing any problems,” said Sikora.