Flood — Taiya Inlet, Alaska

2013-09-07 to 2013-09-09 · near Skagway, Taiya Inlet, Alaska

Event narrative

The ground was already saturated from previous rain events and most of the rainfall turned into strait runoff and flowed into the Taiya River. Rain amounts ranged from two to tree inches in 24hrs. The river level rose several feet the first day to be above minor flood stage. Then the river gauge shot up by two feet in twenty four hours to reach nineteen feet from the heavy rainfall, moderate flood stage is set at seventeen feet. There was significant flooding to the area along the Chillkoot trail and in the town of Dyea as this was the second height river stage on record of nineteen point zero six feet. There was flooding over the campground in Dyea and water surrounded a home and got into the crawl space.

Wider weather episode

An atmospheric river moves over the southeast alaska as a upper trof dug into the pacific and built a upper ridge over the eastern gulf. The very strong and deep onshore flow along with ample amount of tropical moisture moving north produced heavy rainfall over the panhandle from increased orographic lifting.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (59.6057, -135.3196)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 479566. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.