Debris Flow in Mercer County, West Virginia

A rock retaining wall along Duhring Avenue in the community of Bramwell collapsed due to excessive rainfall, with the debris observed blocking the road.

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.