Flood — Russell, Virginia

2017-04-23 · near Castlewood, Russell, Virginia

Event narrative

Numerous road closures in the Castlewood area.

Wider weather episode

A 500 MB trough of low pressure moved into the central plains on the 20th and 21st, and was associated with a surface front moving southeastward from the Ohio Valley into eastern Kentucky and middle Tennessee. This placed the upper Tennessee Valley in a warm and humid air mass, which aided in the generation of heavy rainfall and some severe storms on those days. The 500 MB trough then deepened into a closed low, while low pressure formed along the surface front and tracked from southern Arkansas on the 22nd to northern Georgia on the 23rd, by which time a surface trough extended from Chattanooga to southwestern Virginia. Upper level divergence on the northeast side of the closed low and these surface boundaries contributed to additional heavy rains on the 22nd and 23rd.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (36.8800, -82.3181)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 693315. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.