HISTORIC WEST VA FLOODING, TS BERTHA GULF LANDFALL (4AET)
(CNN) — Bertha has fizzled out, but moisture linked to the former tropical storm is still fueling a flood threat in the Southeast on Friday, and it could linger into the weekend for some.
Bertha dissipated over Texas on Thursday evening, where it had little impact except some locally heavy rain, including around Houston.
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The system could have a more serious impact farther east, where a plume of its moisture is getting snagged on a slow-moving front. That front has now gone from slow-moving to stalled, locking in rainfall over parts of the Southeast.
A Level 3 of 4 risk of flooding rainfall stretches across southeast North Carolina and coastal and central South Carolina through Friday night. The area includes Wilmington, North Carolina, and Charleston, South Carolina.
Friday’s storms are expected to ramp up in the afternoon and continue into the evening hours.
The region needs rain to quench widespread severe to extreme drought, but if it falls too quickly — at rates of 3 inches or more per hour — it could overwhelm the dry ground.
Drenching rain won’t fall over the entire Level 3 risk area, but it could trigger significant flash flooding wherever these heavier storms set up. It’s not certain to happen, but the ingredients are in place to fuel this higher level risk.
Rainfall totals could reach 5 inches or more in spots, which is close to a month’s worth of rain for some. Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, averages 5.40 inches in July.
Other parts of the Southeast could also see rainfall heavy enough to trigger some flooding on Friday. A Level 2 of 4 risk of flooding rainfall is in place for Atlanta; Birmingham, Alabama; and Greenville, South Carolina.
The threat extends into Saturday, with a Level 2 risk in the same areas, with one or more additional rounds of heavy rain possible.
The flood threat has been in place since Wednesday, when Bertha’s moisture began funneling into the Southeast and southern Virginia in earnest. On Wednesday morning, storms caused flash flooding north of Knoxville, Tennessee, after up to 5 inches of rain fell in a few hours.
Flash flood warnings were issued in North Carolina, including Greensboro and Winston-Salem, Wednesday night, where heavy storms dropped up to 6 inches of rain — a month’s worth — in 12 hours. There were no flood reports from the area, where a serious drought and prolonged, rather than intense, rainfall helped mitigate the threat.
On Thursday morning, flooding temporarily closed a short section of Interstate 40 northwest of Durham, North Carolina, according to the state’s department of transportation.
As for Bertha itself, it proved to mostly be a nuisance this week along the Gulf Coast, from the Florida Panhandle to Texas.
Unfavorable winds in the atmosphere kept the tropical storm lopsided, with much of its heaviest rain and strongest winds over the Gulf instead of land. Dangerous beach conditions and minor coastal flooding were the main impacts along the northern Gulf Coast.
Bertha made its first landfall in southeast Louisiana on Wednesday afternoon. Wind gusts over 40 mph were clocked at New Orleans Lakefront Airport.
The storm then skirted farther west along the Louisiana coast before pushing ashore for its final time near the Texas-Louisiana border on Thursday afternoon.
Bertha was the second named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, which has gotten off to a slow start compared to recent years as El Niño tightens its grip on parts of the basin.
The-CNN-Wire
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