Creeks rise quickly across southern WV: Slow-moving storms bring lightning, hail, minor flash flooding: August 6, 2005
ABOVE: Mill Creek goes from normal flow to a raging, muddy river in seconds after a stationary storm dumped heavy rain in the mountains upstream.
EXPEDITION VIDEO: How fast can a flash flood happen? Watch: Watch Video Clip
GREEN SULPHUR SPRINGS, WV - A stalled frontal boundary was the focus for thunderstorms again in southern West Virginia on Saturday afternoon. The storms moved very little or not at all, producing heavy rainfall and minor flooding incidents.
Mill Creek along I-64 in northeastern Summers County demonstrated how fast a flash flood can develop. A storm developed and stayed stationary on the ridges in the extreme northern corner of the county, with torrential downpours, small hail and lightning. Streams and creeks on the mountains quickly rose as the excessive runoff flowed down the slopes. In Green Sulphur Springs, three miles downstream from the intense core of the storm, Mill Creek was flowing normally at around 5:00PM. Around 5:30PM, a surge of water from the storm runoff arrived suddenly, engulfing everything in the creek basin within seconds. The water continued to rise slowly over the next few minutes, before leveling off and finally receding.
The incident was recorded on camera (see video clip above), and proves just how suddenly a flash flood can begin. The high water on Mill Creek stayed below flood limits this time, but had the storm upstream lasted longer or been larger, the rapid rise in water would have been even higher and more dangerous. Flash floods are commonplace in West Virginia, where the rugged, steep terrain requires only as few as two inches of rain in an hour for creeks to begin rising out of their banks.
BELOW: Mill Creek goes from normal flow to a raging, muddy river in seconds after a stationary storm dumped heavy rain in the mountains upstream.
My work is, at this very moment you are reading this, generating the most income it ever has in my career. Yet, I was forced to shut down the professional side of my successul operation, against my will, due to one cause alone: 95% of that revenue is being stolen by piracy and copyright infringement. I've lost more than $1 million to copyright infringement in the last 15 years, and it's finally brought an end to my professional storm chasing operation. Do not be misled by the lies of infringers, anti-copyright activists and organized piracy cartels. This page is a detailed, evidenced account of my battle I had to undertake to just barely stay in business, and eventually could not overcome. It's a problem faced by all of my colleagues and most other creators in the field.
Web Site Design and Internet Marketing by CIS Internet
From Dan: Please Read
To my regular readers, I offer my apologies for this heavy-handed notice. Unfortunately it has become necessary, so please bear with me!
Please don't copy/upload this site's content to social media or other web sites. Those copies have been a critical problem for me, seriously harming this site and my photography/storm chasing operation by diverting traffic, viewers, engagement and income. "Credit" and "exposure" does not benefit this site or my operation, rather they threaten my ability to cover my operating expenses. Please read my full explanation for this notice here.
Before continuing, check each box to agree to and acknowledge these two statements:
Click this button to finalize this acknowledgement:
