Flash Flood — Washington, New York

2020-08-24 · near East Whitehall, Washington, New York

Event narrative

The Whitehall Central Schools' Superintendent reported that 100 percent of the Junior-Senior High School had flood waters inside, resulting in major damage.

Wider weather episode

A hot and humid airmass was in place, providing enough energy for scattered thunderstorms to develop across the region. The hardest hit area was in the town of Whitehall, New York which saw repeated rounds of heavy rain and thunderstorms during the afternoon and early evening hours of August 24th. An impressive 4 to 6 inches of rain fell across the far northeast portions of Washington County, resulting in 8 flooded roadways, 21 flooded structures, 1 water rescue, several cars partially submerged and the Whitehall Junior-Senior High School being significantly damaged by the flood waters. The school superintendent estimated that it would cost 16 million dollars to repair the damages from the flood waters. Overall, 40 homes and 13 businesses or non-profit organizations sustained damage totaling 1.5 million dollars. There was also about 1,200 power outages as a result of the storms in Washington County. A Physical Disaster Declaration was declared for Washington County as a result of the storms. There was also one isolated report of trees down in Albany county from a separate storm.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (43.5515, -73.3769)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 915337. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.