Flooding this week in the Whites, be careful

[Mattl]

A note of caution for everyone hiking this weekend. After the past week of rain, 2-5 inches in the White Mountains, streams are running very high. With 3 days of rain coming up, with some computer models forecasting 3-5 more inches, this could be a problem. Gray Maine is already talking about flood watches and warnings for Wednesday and Thursday, so keep in mind that if you are hiking this weekend, mend your plans around that. Dry river would not be a good hike this weekend, or Owls Head. A deep trough is forming for Wednesday and Atlantic and tropical moisture is going to stream north and train over the region. Everyone be careful, and get ready for the deluge. -Mattl

 

[mookie]

Ditto in VT.
Forecast for 3+" over the next 3 days, then scattered showers for the weekend.

 

[dr_wu002]

I'll bring my parachute cord and some towels.

Thanks for the warning.

-Dr. Wu

 

[DrewKnight]

Thanks for the heads-up, Matt...

I went out for an abortive hike yesterday afternoon with MikeF64... We started in mist and light rain, but bailed when the sky opened up in a genuine deluge at about 5pm. At that point, Tecumseh Brook on the Mt. Tecumseh Trail was up a bit, but not exactly raging -- crossing was easy enough on the regular stepping-stones. The Mad River didn't look all that angry this morning, either.

That said, we've had quite a bit of rain in the last five days. If we get more heavy showers today and tomorrow, I wouldn't be surprised to see the waters on the rise.

 

[wromanow]

I am heading up to Greenleaf on Friday afternoon via Old Bridle Path. On Saturday I was planning on coming down Falling Waters, which I now am reconsidering given the heavy rains of the past few days. How is Liberty Springs after heavy rain? Better than Falling Waters?

 

[bikehikeskifish]

This morning's MWO forecast, on NHPR, said the potential exists for up to 6" of rain in some areas of the state this weekend. Granted this claim is congruent with "Made with 100% real lobster", but it's gonna be wet.

My mother-in-law and sister-in-law live on the western side of the WMNF on the way down to the CT river valley and their farms are super saturated already.

Tim

 

[Puck]

This morning's MWO forecast, on NHPR, said the potential exists for up to 6" of rain in some areas of the state this weekend. Granted this claim is congruent with "Made with 100% real lobster", but it's gonna be wet.

My mother-in-law and sister-in-law live on the western side of the WMNF on the way down to the CT river valley and their farms are super saturated already.

Tim

There was hail in the focast on the NOAA site for Gorham. My son is on an AMC spike crew in the Eastern White Mountains. I am glad they make em wear helmets.

 

[Kevin Judy and Emma]

Storms

We're getting severe storms with torrential downpours here in Rockingham and Hillsborough Counties. Everything is moving northeast along the Maine border.

There are reports on WMUR of a tornado touch down in Epsom, just northeast of Manchester with 50-100 homes damaged.

KDT

 

[rocket21]

We're getting severe storms with torrential downpours here in Rockingham and Hillsborough Counties. Everything is moving northeast along the Maine border.

More interestingly, the cell has been moving almost due north for the last half hour +

 

[MadRiver]

Our facilities department at PSU is calling for the Pemi to crest above flood stage sometime tonight. And are asking everyone to move their cars from the vacinity of the field house off of 175A.

 

[DrewKnight]

Rivers definitely raging...

The Pemi, Beebe, and Mad Rivers are all very high... the Beebe River Falls in Campton were a raging cataract at 7pm tonight.

All the smaller tributaries to the Mad River as you come up Waterville Valley (Drakes Brook, Smarts Brook, Snow's Brook, even the little feeder streams) were much too high for safe crossings.

The rain appears to be largely past now -- but it's hard to imagine things will settle back down much for tomorrow, or maybe even Saturday.

 

[dentonfabrics]

Heading home from Pittsburg, I drove thru Franconia Notch yesterday around 3:30pm. Very strong winds pushing around my truck and sheets of blinding rain.

Curiosity got the best of me, however, and I doubled back to check out Lafayette trailhead parking and sure enough, there were 8-10 cars parked there. Hope everyone got out alright.


bob

 

[Mattl]

Everyone be careful, 2.5-4 inches of rain fell across the Whites in the last 2 days, and about 7 or 8 inches in the last couple of weeks. -Mattl

 

[DougPaul]

Just checked the gages: the rivers draining the Whites are running 5-40 times the mean flow for this date. It looks like some new high-flow records are being set...

http://waterdata.usgs.gov/nh/nwis/rt

Doug

 

[DrewKnight]

Rivers and streams still running high

I did a quick tour of the local rivers and streams immediately around Waterville... as of 11am, the streams were still quite high. My layman's estimate is that the Mad is running about 2x deeper than it was a week ago -- full bank to bank and flowing fast and fairly deep. From the road, I could see places that I would consider crossing, but only with extreme care.

This is the Mad below Tripoli Road Bridge

This is Drake's Brook east of Rt 49

 

[MadRiver]

The Mad River:

Last night I could only see the large rock at the Eddy while all the others rocks were underwater. This morning the river dropped during the night and I could once again see the rocks in the river.

 

[psmart]

Yesterday (Thursday) in Chocorua Village we had 5.4 inches of rain. The top mark on my rain gauge is 5.5 inches! Most of it fell between 2 and 3 AM, and the rest around 5PM. Fortunately, we didn't get the winds that flattened several areas to the south.

This was approximately our 50-year rainfall event. You can see the timing of the rainfall on the Bearcamp River rain gauge. Although that station only got about 3 inches or rain, it shows the same timing and the intense nature of the rainfall. Scroll to the bottom of the page to see the rainfall depth vs. time. Note the sharp step early on the 24th.

http://waterdata.usgs.gov/usa/nwis/uv?site_no=01064801

 

[rocket21]

Brooks/rivers are very high from the Lakes Region to the Presis, too - Gibbs Falls off the Crawford Path today was VERY loud and impressive - it sounded like constant thunder from higher up on the trail!

A really strong cell straddled the Maine/New Hampshire border (twister touched down in Ossipee, some of the back roads in the Granite area are closed due to the destruction) yesterday, so I'd imagine any thing out that way is probably saturated today. It's been a nice sunny day up north all day today, fortunately, so stuff is certainly drying off a little bit.

 

[DrewKnight]

Saturday AM update

Mad River and upper tributaries are back down considerably from even yesterday morning. Rode past Mad, Tecumseh Brook, and several smaller feeder streams in the north end of the WV trail system -- all still high for mid-summer, but much lower than yesterday at this time.

I would say smaller stream crossings, taken with reasonable care, should be fine today.

 

[grouseking]

We're getting severe storms with torrential downpours here in Rockingham and Hillsborough Counties. Everything is moving northeast along the Maine border.

There are reports on WMUR of a tornado touch down in Epsom, just northeast of Manchester with 50-100 homes damaged.

KDT

Slightly off topic to the rain, but these pictures are amazing.
http://www.lakesregionaerials.com/photostore/Tornado_2008_g123.html

I heard a story that after the tornado died, a shower of leaves and twigs fell over parts on Conway. Imagine seeing that while you're hiking up there.