Rain's path brings sigh of relief, limited flooding
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The Point in Downtown Pittsburgh on Saturday flooded after melting snow, left from the region?s all-time highest monthly snowfall in February, combined with weekend rain.
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Western Pennsylvanians watched warily on Saturday night as rivers filled or spilled over their banks in some communities, but emergency workers expressed relief as updated forecasts called for less-severe flooding than expected.
This weekend's storm trekked further south than predicted, dumping 2 to 3 inches of rain on central West Virginia south of the Cheat River, said Rodney Smith, a forecaster with the National Weather Service in Pittsburgh.
Had the storm's path been 50 or 75 miles further north, the heaviest rain would have gotten into the Cheat River and into snowpack in the higher ridges nearby, he said. That would have set up a far worse flood scenario for the Pittsburgh region where melting snow already has saturated the ground.
"We dodged a bullet," he said.
Instead of roughly 1 to 1.5 inches of rain falling by early today, the revised forecast now says the Pittsburgh area should receive about 0.75 inches of rain from the storm, Mr. Smith said. Flood watches along the Ohio River downstream from Pittsburgh were cancelled.
Had the weekend storm delivered as initially feared -- based on earlier, more ominous forecasts that the rivers Downtown could rise as high as 32 feet -- "there would have been no place for the rain to go but into the rivers, so we felt we had to be prepared. The risk was there," said Werner Loehlein, chief of the water management branch of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for the Pittsburgh District.
Still, residents and emergency management officials in flood-prone areas had their hands full Saturday night.
The weather service said flood warnings or watches remained in effect for a number of areas including Allegheny County, where the Ohio River in Pittsburgh held steady at 21.3 feet for much of Saturday.
The Mon Wharf, which floods when the Monongahela River rises to 18 feet, and a portion of Point State Park, Downtown, already were under water. The wharf will remain closed until at least Tuesday.
First Published March 14, 2010 12:46 am
