Flash Flood — St. Thomas, Virgin Islands

2010-07-20 · near St Thomas, St. Thomas, Virgin Islands

Event narrative

At Wendy's restaurant, located at Mandela Circle in St. Thomas, the road in front of the restaurant was flooded. Heavy rains during the afternoon closed St. Thomas' Brookman Road, combined with street flooding near Havensight Mall.

Wider weather episode

An active tropical wave moved across Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands on Monday July 19, generating numerous showers and isolated thunderstorms, some with very heavy rain. Although by Tuesday morning July 20 the tropical wave axis had moved into Hispaniola, the wave itself was maintaining a broad area of disturbed weather, aided in part by an upper level low pressure system just north northwest of the local area. By late Thursday July 22, the islands were still dealing with the effects of several days of widespread rainfall. Even though this tropical disturbance, which later became Tropical Storm Bonnie, was now located over eastern Cuba, it was still able to generate another band of moisture which brought additional areas of rainfall across Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Flooding resulted from swollen guts in addition to urban flooding in Havensight and Brookman Road in Saint Thomas and at the Marketplace shopping center in Cruz Bay, Saint John. In Saint Croix, a trained observer reported 2.14 inches of rain in one hour, flooding was reported in Christiansted and Teague's Bay. Another spotter from the west end of Saint Croix recorded 2.88 inches on the 19th and 2.91 inches on the 20th. Airlines flights were affected by cancellations due to thunderstorms.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (18.3211, -64.8786)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 253566. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.