Will the famous July Pennsylvania floods repeat this week?
UPDATE: Middletown, Pennsylvania flooded Sunday night July 23rd after more than 10 inches of rain; flooding rain also washed away cars and homes in Mason County, Kentucky:
In Mason County, Kentucky, a state of emergency was declares as powerful flood waters swept away everything in their path.
ORIGINAL BLOG: JULY 19TH, 2017:
Everybody in the state of Pennsylvania remembers the Johnstown Flood of 1977 and Smethport flood of 1942. Both occurred this week in history, and history could repeat itself, although odds say it won't be in the same towns. Research I have done shows that the 1977 Johnstown flood was caused by an "MCS" event (Mesoscale Convective Systems) which trained heavy rain over the city. Although satellite images weren't around in 1942, we believe the Smethport flood fell under a similar pattern, which took over in July 2010 and will again this week.
Already this week in Pennsylvania, there has been flooding at the "Falling Water" house (designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, see below), in York and in Wilkes Barre. So the forecast for the next few days isn't good.
We say in our story "Volatile storms will unleash flooding risk along the rim of heat in the northeastern US":
Flooding already this week has hit York and Wilkes Barre, PA, and included damage at the "Falling Water" (Frank Lloyd Wright) house in Mill Run, Pennsylvania. Here's a map showing the 3-day rainfall for the state:
The image below shows the extreme flow of the creek on July 15, versus a normal and low flow (enlarge):
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There are no USGS river gauges close to Mill Run, but three nearby river and creek gauges showed tremendous rises on July 14th and 15th -- the Youghiogheny River at Ohiopyle, PA rose from 2 to 10 feet in less than 24 hours (enlarge).
The daily time-lapse video below covers the last two years (one webcam shot per day) and shows that flow this high is very rare.
This is confirmed by looking at the historical graph during that period from the Youghiogheny River at Ohiopyle, PA -- only twice (at that gauge, no way to know if it happened at Mill Run) during the last two years has the level of the river been above what it was last Saturday.
