Them There Cricks Are "Blown Out"

One of my esteemed colleagues educated me about the status of streams and creeks when they are at flood.  That central PA trout fishing term is "blown out".  Well, I would have to say that the tropical connection partially thanks to Lee, partially thanks to Katia, and partially thanks to the lifted jet far to the north over eastern North America.  Here is the water vapor image as of Wednesday afternoon.  Note the deep moisture being advected from the Bay of Campeche near the Yucatan Peninsula!  It is disconcerting that a small amount of Katia's moisture is actually getting involved with this plume of moisture....ouch!

I just took a snapshot of the current radar from State College.  It has looked this ugly most of the day.  The amount of rain has been training over the same region for most of the daylight hours today.  The greatest rainfall rates I observed from a co-op observer was 3"+ from the 11-12 noon hour.  The observation from a dedicated reader was 7.2" in Watts Twp in Perry County for the storm total.  At my humble abode in Etters, my wife reported 2.91 inches as of 11 am and that was from our 6 am report.  That makes just over 8.25" since Saturday in northern York County!  Wow!  What the radar below doesn't show is the copious amounts of radar returns that are aimed right at central PA.

So with all of this rainfall, here are the latest predictions of some of the streams in our area.  This flooding if it materializes on the Susquehanna will be the 3rd highest on record behind Agnes, the 1996 Walnut Street Flood and exceed Ivan in 2004.  It looks ugly for Harrisburg River flooding!  The crest as of now is forecast to top out early Saturday morning.  Please understand that river forecasting is one of the most difficult forecasts to make in the world of hydrology.  So many variables enter into the equations and the modeling is truly a work in progress.

And here is the Swatty's latest forecast....that record was back in June of 2004 due to simply tropical thunderstorms that fell for 3 days on/off over eastern Dauphin County and Schuylkill County.

Another reason why I am so concerned about the Susky is the forecast precip from HPC for this evening through tomorrow evening.  That bullseye of 4"+ in the upper drainage of the Susquehanna does not bode well.  I hope Dauphin County Emergency Management monitors the situation a bit more closely than they did today!

Well I always try to leave you with a bit of humor or something that is "off-the-wall".  Well this is too much of a good thing.....Enjoy the tunes if you're not bailing....

See everyone Friday?  Maybe? 

Smitty

AA:  It's raining, it's pouring, and Timmy, please report to the office along with countless others!