San Antonio River Rose 7 Feet in an Hour
UPDATE 2PM Central: The Pedernales River at Johnson City rose nearly 8 feet in 4 hours and is above Major Flood Stage with this scenario listed as typical for that level: "MAJOR FLOODING MAKES SECONDARY AND PRIMARY ROADS BELOW STONEWALL TO LAKE TRAVIS VERY DANGEROUS - LOW PARK AREAS DOWNSTREAM IN PEDERNALES FALLS STATE PARK FLOOD." The The San Antonio River at Elmendorf gauge (updated graph shown below) rose again today to 42.67 feet. This should cause the following scenario according to AHPS: "MODERATE LOWLAND FLOODING INUNDATES CROP AND PASTURELAND BELOW SAN ANTONIO TO BELOW FLORESVILLE. ROADS AND BRIDGES IN THE FLOOD PLAIN ARE FLOODED. PUMP JACKS AND OIL FIELD TANK BATTERIES FLOOD".
7 AM Central: Severe flooding continues in Texas today due to Tropical Depression Hermine and you can read more about it and where it will spread on AccuWeather.com. Over 10 inches of rain has fallen in the past two days in some areas. If you have flooding photos or video, upload them to AccuWeather.com Facebook.
But for this blog entry, I wanted to concentrate on showing some of the amazing graphs from the San Antonio River. The San Gabriel River at Georgetown South Fork rose from 3 feet to 22 before dropping back to 10, presumably after a dam was opened up.
The river rose from 7.45 to 20.78 feet in 3 hours, at a rate of more than 7 feet per hour max. That's hard to evacuate from. According to that page, even at 20 feet typically "MODERATE LOWLAND FLOODING CLOSES SECONDARY AND PRIMARY ROADS NEARTHE RIVER. THE CITY PARK IS SEVERELY FLOODED. LIVESTOCK AND EQUIPMENT SHOULD BE MOVED FROM THE FLOOD PLAIN FROM THE HEADWATERS TO GRANGER LAKE."
The San Antonio River at Elmendorf rose from 11 to 35 feet, above flood stage but is forecast to drop. It rose up to a foot an hour from 11.74 to 34.62 in 9 hours. Fortunately, there isn't much population in this area -- normally at 35 feet "MINOR LOWLAND FLOODING INUNDATES CROP AND PASTURELAND BELOW SAN ANTONIO TO BELOW FLORESVILLE."
Also above flood stage is the Salado Creek at Loop 13 which is flooding secondary roads and bridges, the Onion Creek at US 183 which is doing the same, and The Barton Creek at Loop 36 which are doing the same, the latter being at major flood stage (i.e., off the charts).
Further updates can be obtained from NOAA AHPS which is the source of all of this data.
