CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The storm named Harvey is “in the process of dying,” according to the National Weather Service.
“As it kind of dies, it doesn’t have a whole lot of energy left to work with,” explained Jonathan Wolfe, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Charleston, on Thursday.
By the time it gets to West Virginia, “It will still be a fairly wet system,” he said.
“You’ll have a couple of soggy days, mainly Friday afternoon through Saturday morning should be pretty soggy, but, besides that, you probably won’t even realize that it’s part of this massive storm that crippled the Gulf states.”
As of Thursday morning, the National Weather Service had issued no Flash Flood Watches for West Virginia.
Watches and Flood Warnings were in effect in southern Ohio, much of Kentucky, western Tennessee, western Mississippi, eastern Arkansas and eastern Louisiana.
Harvey's rainfall forecast for us. #wvwx #ohwx #vawx #kywx pic.twitter.com/J8TRBd6xSZ
— NWS Charleston, WV (@NWSCharlestonWV) August 31, 2017
Five to seven inches of rain from Harvey was possible in western Kentucky, with three to four projected in an area stretching up into southern Ohio.
Harvey’s rainfall in West Virginia was not expected to top two inches, with the heaviest rain projected for the Huntington Tri-State, Mid-Ohio Valley and north central Mountain State counties.
“There’s always ambiguity in there,” Wolfe said when asked about potential changes to the forecast.
“If the remnants of Harvey drift a little more to the south, we could see the higher amounts that are showing more to the west there but, right now, most models do have the track going over the Ohio River and that would put the heavier precipitation to the northwest of West Virginia.”
Largely dry conditions in the Mountain State could help, Wolfe said.
“The one area that we are a little concerned about is over near Huntington just because they did have an inch or more of rainfall this week so they can’t hold quite as much water,” he said.
“If those higher amounts kind of do inch into that area, that could be an issue but, right now, we’re thinking the higher amounts will still be a little farther west.”
On Thursday, Flood Warnings were still posted for southeastern Texas into southwestern Louisiana which were the areas that recorded feet of rain out of Harvey.
A Category 4 hurricane at its first landfall last Friday, Harvey stalled over Houston and surrounding areas as a tropical storm.