Flood — Radford (c), Virginia

2013-01-31 · near Radford, Radford (c), Virginia

Event narrative

About 100 cars were partially or completely submerged at the Dedmon Center parking lot at Radford University when the New River overflowed its banks. Flooding on the New River was aggravated by water releases at Claytor Lake Dam which took place after midnight on January 31st. It is estimated that the New River near the Dedmon Center rose nine feet in one hour between 2:30 AM and 3:30 AM.

Wider weather episode

With flood waters from heavy rainfall during the afternoon and evening of January 30th rapidly running off from higher terrain and collecting in area river basins, many area rivers exceeded flood stage on January 31st. River flooding was observed at many points along the Dan, James and New Rivers, as well as numerous small rivers and creeks across southwest and central Virginia. Flood waters in hillier terrain receded more quickly, however rivers across the Piedmont region of Virginia remained in flood into the first days of February as they absorbed the collected waters from rainfall occurring in the mountains to the west. Aside from flooded roads adjacent to some of the more swollen rivers, river flooding across the area was minimized due to very low river levels as a result of minor to moderately dry conditions across the region during the autumn.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (37.1411, -80.5414)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 431313. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.