Flood Warning Issued For Barbour County

IMPORTANT INFORMATION: We have received the following document from Barbour County Office of Emergency Management. Take this warning seriously, as flooding is expected.

Weather Event Update from National Weather Service, Charleston

Thursday, January 30, 2025 at 1730 (5:30pm):

Barbour County will be under a FLOOD WATCH from Friday, January 31st at 1:00am through Sunday, February 2nd at 9:00am. We could see localized stream/creek/ditch flooding Friday followed by River flooding late Friday going into Saturday.

Rain Event Details: Heaviest rainfall should be occurring Friday Morning into early afternoon. Good chance of at least 1 inch of total rainfall, a slight risk of totals being over 1 ½ inches in total.

River Flood Details: The main issue that we are watching is that the snow pack melting in the mountains south of Barbour could result in another 1-1/2 inches of liquid precipitation to be added to the river systems that feed into the Tygart River. The River is expected to be in the Action into Minor Flood stages between Friday at 7:00pm into Saturday at 1:00am. The River is expected to crest in the Moderate Flood Levels around Saturday at 7:00am.

Philippi Forecast for the weekend:

Belington Area Forecast for the weekend:

This is a normal amount of rain, but keep in mind that the snow that is on the ground will be melting off and the ground is saturated, so most of this rain and snow melt is going to end up in creeks and streams rapidly which could result in isolated flooding all over the county.

River Gauge Model for Tygart River in Belington:

Belington Flood Impacts:

We know that at 16 foot we have to consider shutting down the Belington Bridge to All Traffic and we will be monitoring the new Junior Bridge as we do not know a definite water height that will trigger shutting down that bridge to All Traffic.

River Gauge Model for Tygart River in Philippi:

Philippi Flood Impacts:

Barbour OEM/911 will continue to monitor the situation and we will be working with first responder agencies and other stakeholders to ensure that plans and actions will be put into action as we reach certain thresholds of this event.