Active Weather Ahead for the Mid-Ohio Valley

PARKERSBURG, W.Va. (WTAP) - The Mid-Ohio Valley woke up to plenty of rain this morning. This is as a very strong low pressure system continues to push through the country this week. This is the same system that has been responsible for heavy snow out in the west. For us, we will unfortunately not see any snow, but a lot of rain and plenty of winds. This first round of rain is expected to come to an end during the early afternoon. As it does, we will see a small decrease in our cloud cover and temperatures rising with the passage of a warm front. When we do dry out, we will shift our focus off towards the west into Kentucky and southwest Ohio. There are going to be three different threats to look at late this afternoon and overnight tonight.

1. Localize Flooding Threat

The rain this morning has saturated the ground across the region. This will reduce the amount of rain required to create any flooding issues. The flood risk will be relatively limited and not wide spread. However, we cannot rule out this threat due to the potential for some heavy downpours with a few storms. The risk is slightly high towards the south where there is a flood watch across most of the state of Ohio. The current flood watch is in effect for Athens, Meigs, Washington, Morgan, and Nobel counties until 1 AM tomorrow.

2. Severe Weather Threat

The line of storms that will be developing off towards the west will push through the Mid-Ohio Valley by the evening commute, around 4PM to 7PM. The Storm Prediction Center has outlined the entire region with a marginal risk and the southwest portion in a slight risk. The main threat with this line of storms will be the potential for some damaging winds up to 60 mph and an isolated tornado risk.

3. Gusty Wind Threat

After the line of storms push through later this afternoon and evening, we will see our winds pick up overnight tonight. Sustained winds will begin to increase this afternoon to 15-20 mph and overnight to 20-25 mph. Gusts are expected to increase to around 45 mph tonight. Due to these gusty winds, a wind advisory is in place for the entire Mid-Ohio Valley till 7 AM Saturday morning. If you have any loose objects outside, it is best to bring them inside or to tie them down. This will add on to any gusty winds that we see from the thunderstorms this evening. So, the potential for some isolated power outages will exist until the winds start to settle down tomorrow morning.

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