Flood — Taiya Inlet, Alaska

2021-08-12 to 2021-08-14 · near Skagway, Taiya Inlet, Alaska

Event narrative

The Taiya River was steadily rising through August 12th from persistent precipitation and ice melt from glaciers higher up in the headwaters and the river water levels went over minor flood stage of 16.5 feet around 1500AKDT. The precipitation continued through the evening hours of August 12th and the Taiya River went over moderate flood stage of 17 feet around 1900AKDT. The precipitation intensity increased through the early morning hours of August 13th and combined with the high magnitude of warm air associated with the atmospheric river the amount of runoff from glacier/snow melt elevated the rate of rise on the Taiya River significantly. The amount of precipitation and the additional runoff produced rapid river rises on the Taiya river through the morning hours of August 13th. The heavy rainfall begin to diminish and the river crested in the early afternoon on August 13th around 1430AKDT at a level of 19.19 feet before falling below flood stage through the morning hours of August 14th. There was significant damage to National Park infrustruce at Sheep Camp from flooding and from a large rock/landslide. Also, the Chilkoot trail was closed from significant flooding and areas around the campground and Deya were flooded.

Wider weather episode

A strong atmospheric river with sub-tropical moisture moved out of the north Pacific and over Southeast Alaska. This impacted the northern inner channels with 24 to 36 hours of heavy precipitation from a deep upper level trough with a long fetch transporting a significant amount of precipitable water over the complex terrain of the Alaska panhandle.

This atmospheric river produced very high freezing level with very warm air going all the way up to 14,000 feet. The warm rain melted snow that was left from the previous winter in the mountains along with ice melt from area glaciers to increase runoff into the Taiya and Mendenhall River drainage basins. Rainfall amounts from August 13th to the 14th in the Taiya River basin ranged from 0.50 inches at sea level to over 1.30 inches in the headwaters with more than 4 inches over the a 5 day period. The Mendenhall River basin say precipitation values from 3.34 inches near sea level to as much as 5.0 inches in the headwaters. Satellite rainfall estimates indicated there was a lot more rainfall over the Juneau icefield to increase the amount of runoff into the Mendenhall Lake and River system.

There was moderate flooding around the Mendenhall Lake area from the morning hours on August 13th through the afternoon hours of the 14th which fooded multiple roads near the lake and the Mendenhall Lake campground. This was the 3rd highest peak in its period of record going back to 1966 and levels not seen since the glacier dam release from 2016.

There was moderate flooding around the Taiya River from the early evening on August 12th to early afternoon on August 14th which included the the Chilkoot trail and the campground near Deya. This is the second highest crest on record behind the record crest of 19.89 feet from 2002 when a moraine dam broke free along West Creek a tributary of the Taiya River and this was the highest crest seen since 2013.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (59.4692, -135.3323)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 979384. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.