Flood — Transylvania, North Carolina

2021-08-17 to 2021-08-18 · near Rosman, Transylvania, North Carolina

Event narrative

Although heavy rain ended across the upper French Broad basin during the late afternoon and early evening, runoff from the storm total 8 to 20 inch rainfall resulted in persistent and expanding flooding throughout Transylvania County. In addition to the continued problems at Rosman and along the Davidson River in Pisgah Forest and vicinity, moderate main stem river flooding developed downstream to Blantyre and vicinity during the early morning hours of the 18th, with backwater effects also resulting in minor flooding along the Little River. While most of the water receded by sunrise on the 18th, moderate main stem river flooding persisted at Blantyre and vicinity until the early morning of the 20th, and the river did not fall below flood stage until the evening of the 20th.

Wider weather episode

Tropical Storm Fred made landfall in the Florida Panhandle on the 16th and lifted steadily north through Georgia and into the southern Appalachians during the 16th and throughout the 17th. Tropical moisture and strong southeast upslope flow into the Blue Ridge mountains resulted in widespread showers and some thunderstorms producing extremely heavy rainfall rates. By the time the rain tapered off by the end of the 17th, 24-hour rainfall amounts of 5-12 inches were reported across portions of the mountains and foothills. This was in addition to a small area of 5-10 inch amounts that fell across portions of the southern North Carolina mountains during the morning of the 16th. The result of this rainfall was significant to catastrophic flash flooding across portions of the French Broad and Pigeon River basins, including some of the worst flooding to impact these areas in almost 20 years. The most severe flooding occurred in portions of southern and central Haywood County, where a number of fatalities and hundreds of millions of dollars and damage occurred. In addition, a brief tornado touched down in Iredell County and tracked into Alexander County.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (35.1470, -82.8320)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 982278. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.