Flood — Tazewell, Virginia

2025-02-15 to 2025-02-16 · near Raven, Tazewell, Virginia

Event narrative

The Clinch River at Richlands, VA (RLRV2), crested at the Major Flood Stage (16.0 feet) of 16.09 feet at 11:30 pm EST on the 15th above the Minor Flood Stage of 10.0 feet. This is tied for the 4th-highest crest of all-time (Records dating back at least to 1901), and about the highest crest at this gage since 1978. The flooding was the result of between 2.75 to 3.25 inches of rain falling across the entire headwaters during a 9 hour period due to training heavy showers/storms. This event is about a 25-year event (4% Annual Exceedance Probability) per USGS StreamStats. Significant flooding was observed across town, with water entering many businesses and residences. As the river rose, multiple properties became inundated along Edgewater Drive near the gage. Water entered homes along E 1st and 2nd Streets on the east side of town. Water also surrounded homes on Orange and Jewell Streets, though it is unclear if water did enter any of the homes. Significant inundation occurred along Alleghany and Road and 4th Street, with multiple businesses along Front Street taking in at least 1 foot of water. Flooding of the river was also observed at the Richlands Tabernacle Church near the intersection of 4th Street and Rockbridge Street. Multiple motor homes around Page and Allen Streets were surrounded by at least 1.5 feet of water, though it did not appear that water entered any of the residences. In the Raven area, water surrounded several homes on Kirby Road, Atmore Street and Bottom Road, though there were no reports of the water actually entering the homes. If true, this would be about as high as water could rise without doing so. Water crested on Kirby Road next to the Doran Grocery Store before receding again. The elementary school at the end of Bottom Road was surrounded by water. Water advanced across York and Daw Roads off of Bottom Road as well. The National Guard was brought in during the flooding to help people evacuate, with at least 51 people assisted from their homes by swift water rescue teams.

Wider weather episode

A deep upper level trough was observed exiting the southern Rockies during the morning of February 15th, with southwesterly windflow ahead of the trough allowing for a fetch of deep moisture from the western Gulf of America. This moisture pooled along a warm front situated across from Kentucky into southwest Virginia, where precipitable water values increased from 0.6 to 0.7 inches at 7 am that morning, to around 1.1 to 1.2 inches by early afternoon, which would be around 2 standard deviations above normal for mid-February. While the warm front shifted northward to the west of the Appalachians, high pressure off the Atlantic coast that was wedged against the eastern face of the Appalachians delayed the northward progress of the warm front. As such, the front remained stationary, and provided the focus for training of bands of heavy rain that fell across southwest Virginia through much of the day on February 15th. The rain fell at rates of 0.3 to 0.5 per hour beginning at around 9 am EST in the morning, which persisted for a 9-10 hour period. Rainfall totals ranged from 2 to 3 inches across southwest Virginia during this period. Soils across the area were nearly saturated from 2 rounds of widespread precipitation that fell earlier in the month. Additionally, the rain was falling over ground that was partially frozen, and covered in snow and ice from a winter storm that impacted southwest and central Virginia a few days earlier, increasing the rapid runoff potential into the creeks and rivers. In this event, CREST Unit Streamflow did not show impressive returns, while MRMS underestimated some of the precipitation totals. It was those factors combined with the high runoff potential of the rainfall that resulted in a lack of realization how quickly river levels were rising, and just how intense the flooding was becoming, even as far east as Appomattox County. CREST Hydrophobic Unit Flow proved to be a more accurate tool in this situation given the frozen ground, with returns as high as 480 cfs/m^2 across Giles County, which is where some of the most intense flooding was observed. Because MRMS was underestimating rainfall amounts, both the FLASH ARI and QPE/FFG values were also significantly underestimated. In these situation, monitoring ground-truth precipitation totals from a network of private weather stations might have prompted Flash Flood Warnings to be issued sooner.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (37.0841, -81.8541)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1227987. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.