Over 17" of Rain from Fred
Good afternoon folks! It has been a long 24 hours and for those who have reached out, asking how they can help, we are directing folks to the Waynesville News Group facebook page, which is organizing a collection to help the cleanup efforts in southern Haywood County. Canton is experiencing major flooding this morning as seen in the banner image above and although this is several feet below the 2004 record, further upstream the East Fork in Bethel set a new stage height record of 16.5', beating the previous record 13.1'. This occurred after picking up 14.17" of rain over 3 days at the Cruso Fire Department, with 9" falling on Tuesday alone and 5.28" falling in under 3 hours (2 - 5pm), causing the flash flood to occur along the East Fork later that evening. Smoky Mountain News is putting together a collection of images, testimonials, and a timeline and we encourage folks to check it out; link to page.
Just on the other side of the Great Balsams, along the escarpment in Lake Toxaway, the highest total for the 3 day event was reported, with a whopping 17.36"!!! This was reported by a CoCoRaHS gauge and we always encourage our readers to sign up to be a citizen scientist and shed more light on the extreme weather in SW NC.
In general SW NC verified the forecasted rainfall, with 3 - 6" regionwide and numerous sites along the escarpment and across the Highlands Plateau/Great Balsams picking up over a foot of rain from Sunday into Tuesday. We'll enjoy a reprieve from the persistent, tropical downpours we have been dealing with the past two days and transition into a typical later summertime setup starting today (Wednesday), fully transitioning by Friday or Saturday. Temps will also return to normal, hitting the low 80's today and peaking to the mid 80's this weekend.
We'll start the timeline on Thursday with an upper level trough and front swinging into the region, setting the stage for scattered showers as soon as daybreak. Scattered coverage will continue most of the day, fizzle out by the evening hours and fire back up again Friday afternoon. We'll experience periods of sunshine both Thursday and Friday but as moisture levels remain elevated, this will lead to pop up showers much like we experience in the middle of summer = just about everywhere has a chance for shower activity. Temps Thursday and Friday warm to the upper 60's above 5500', while the valleys push into the low - mid 80's. Overnight lows settle back into the upper 50's - mid 60's each night, under mostly cloudy skies and alongside isolated shower coverage.
The weekend is shaping up to be a bit sunnier than Thur/Fri but not full sunshine, more like a mostly sunny start with clouds building by midday, followed by scattered thunderstorms sometime between 2 - 5pm. Temps climb a degree or two due to the uptick in sunshine, reaching the low 70's above 5500' and mid 80's across the valley floor. The trend beyond this weekend shows temps pushing into the upper 80's and although this is not a guarantee, the trend is not our friend if you don't like temps running 3 - 5 degrees above normal.
We'll stop here and circle back on Friday, but always follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram for continuous coverage during events and to see the collection of photos and videos from this record setting event.