CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A flash flood watch for Saturday now includes 51 West Virginia counties.
The remnants of Tropical Storm Bill will enter the state from the west Saturday afternoon, according to National Weather Service meteorologist Dave Marsalek.
“Just generally all across the area we want people to be aware of the amounts of rain that could be coming,” Marsalek told MetroNews Friday.
The forecast is calling for 1 to 3 inches from Saturday afternoon through late Saturday night. That’s something the state typically could handle had it not been for the rain that already fell this week.
“A lot of the smaller creeks and streams are still running on the high side, so we’re kind of starting in the hole already,” Marsalek said.
It’s been kind of difficult for the weather service to predict exactly where the heaviest rain will end up. It could be somewhere between the northern part of the coalfields to the U.S. Route 50 corridor. Heavy rain and even thunderstorms are possible.
“Some of those amounts are going to be locally heavier, some may not get quite as much, but again, given the rainfall we’ve had it’s something we’re a little bit concerned about,” Marsalek said.
The remnants of Bill should cross the eastern mountains by Saturday night but that won’t signal a drier pattern for West Virginia.
“We’re staying in the wetter pattern and there will be in more rounds of showers and thunderstorms as we start the new work week,” Marsalek said.
The counties in the flash flood watch area including all counties except for Marshall, Ohio, Hancock and Brooke.