Flood — Radford (c), Virginia

2019-02-23 to 2019-02-24 · near Radford, Radford (c), Virginia

Event narrative

The New River at Radford (RDFV2) crested at 15.79 feet early on the 24th. Minor flood stage is 14 feet. The peak discharge of 57900 cfs was slightly less than a 5-year annual recurrence interval event (0.20 annual chance flood) per USGS studies. Several roads close the river were flooded.

Wider weather episode

From February 20th to 24th, multiple rounds of precipitation passed across the region, resulting in liquid accumulations ranging from around 2 to 4 inches with isolated 5-inch amounts over a four-day period. The storm started out on the 20th as a combination of snow, sleet and freezing rain across the mountains and foothills with liquid equivalents of 0.50 up to 2 inches. The next storm arrived early late on February 21st, with warmer air arriving with the system allowing the precipitation to fall mainly as rain, which helped to quickly melt the frozen precipitation which fell during the 24-36 hours prior. With soils already saturated from previous precipitation, runoff from this storm caused several rivers to rise into minor flood, including points along the Dan, Roanoke, New and James Rivers. Flood frequency return intervals on most of the gaged streams and rivers in this event was roughly in the 2- to 5-year recurrence interval or 0.50 to 0.20 annual chance flood. Several rock and mudslides were also reported.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (37.1233, -80.5950)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 809006. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.