Flood — Greenbrier, West Virginia

2025-02-07 · near Alderson, Greenbrier, West Virginia

Event narrative

The stream gage at the Greenbrier River at Alderson, WV (ALDW2) crested at 15.33 feet (42,200 cfs) at 8:15 am EST on 2/7/25. This is roughly a 2-year event (50% AEP) per USGS Streamstats for this location and the highest crest on record since 2014. The Greenbrier basin received between 2 and 3 inches of rainfall in about a 12-hour period ending 10:00 AM EST on 2/7/25, falling over ground that was moistened by widespread rainfall at the beginning of the month. This event is between a 2-year and a 5-year Average Recurrence Interval (50%-20% Annual Exceedance Probability) per USGS StreamStats. Several roads from south of Alderson to Talcott to near Hilldale were reported inundated and impassible by flooding of the Greenbrier River, including portions of Highway 3/12 as well as Howell Street in Alderson, during this event.

Wider weather episode

An area of low pressure moving northeast across the eastern Ohio Valley produced widespread precipitation across southeast West Virginia beginning Wednesday evening into early Thursday morning. While temperatures for much of southeast West Virginia were just warm enough for most of this precipitation to fall as rain, temperatures across the valleys of Western Greenbrier County where just below freezing, which resulted in icing from freezing rain, which accumulated to around one-quarter of an inch on elevated surfaces. Rainfall totals were between 2 and 3 inches for the Greenbrier River Valley, some of which fell over partially frozen ground, resulting in increased runoff that produced minor flooding of the Greenbrier River. Rainfall rates during the event were generally below 0.5 per hour, but occasionally were higher. CREST Unit Streamflows during this event did not provide returns that would indicate any flooding was taking place. However, given the partially frozen ground, Hydrophobic Unit Flow was more representative of the flooding situation.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (37.7301, -80.6676)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1238844. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.