Flash Flood — Erie, Ohio

2022-02-17 · near Vermilion, Erie, Ohio

Event narrative

An ice jam had formed upstream of Vermilion near Mill Hollow and Bacon Woods reservation earlier in the month. Above normal temperatures and increased river flows due to snow melt and precipitation caused the ice jam to release, sending flood waters and ice chunks downstream to Vermilion. Residences along Riverside Drive were affected by flood waters and ice chunks were displaced from the river onto the roadway. Water quickly subsided within an hour.

Wider weather episode

A southeastward-moving surface cold front across southern Lower MI and northern IN approached northwest OH during the early morning of the 17th. The surface pressure gradient tightened in northwest OH as the cold frontal surface trough interacted with a surface ridge axis that remained anchored near the coast of the Carolinas and Georgia. This tightening surface pressure gradient and apparently relatively-deep mechanical mixing of the boundary layer tapping into stronger flow aloft allowed surface wind to gust up to 58 mph in Huron, OH. An area of rain moved east-northeast across northern OH ahead of the cold front during the morning hours. The region was primed for a flooding event due to a widespread snowpack ranging from 0.5 to 1.0 water equivalent across the area, with 2.0 to 3.0 water equivalent in the snowpack across the snowbelt counties of northeast OH. Warm temperatures in the 50s were effective at melting most of the snowpack before and during the rain event on February 17th, with precipitation amounts of 0.50 to 2.00 across the area, the heaviest of which fell across Stark County where the worst flooding occurred. Many area rivers experienced minor to moderate flooding which was aggravated at times by ice jams.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (41.4141, -82.3481)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1011489. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.