Flood in Latah County, Idaho

The Red Cross North Central Disaster Response Team helped a family evacuate their Harvard home early March 26th due to flooding along the Palouse River and Gold Creek. The family had been fighting minor flooding for days but finally decided to evacuate their home when standing water began to fill the house. The water was four inches deep in some spots.

A negatively tilted upper-level trough lifting through the Inland NW on the evening of March 25th through the morning hours of the 26th tapped into subtropical moisture resulting in moderate to heavy convective rainfall for central portions of the Idaho Panhandle. The heaviest rain was observed across the Idaho Palouse, Lewis-Clark Valley, and Central Panhandle Mountains. Twenty-four rainfall amounts across these locations ranged between three-quarters and one and a half inches. Several days earlier, moderate to heavy snowfall fell across these same locations. The combination of heavy rainfall and snow melt led to sharp rises and flooding along the Palouse River and its tributaries. The most significant flooding occurred along Paradise Creek, within the city of Moscow, Idaho.