Heavy Rain Means Trouble On The River

Here in the Triad the chance of showers and thunderstorms on the 4th of July is just as expected as fireworks and cookouts. This year, however, heavy rain created a very dangerous situation on the Dan River in Rockingham County Thursday morning.

At 7:00 am Dan Rivers Adventures, a local tubing company, made the decision that the river was safe for tubers to take to the river. By 7:45 a.m. a train of moderate to heavy showers were moving over Stokes and Rockingham County. Meanwhile, a group of tubers had taken to the river for what was supposed to be a fun and relaxing trip down the river. That all changed when conditions on the river rapidly deteriorated. Between 9 a.m. and 10 a.m. an emergency phone call was made reporting distressed tubers. Fortunately, the Madison Rescue Squad retrieved 15 people from the river where they encountered unmanageable swift waters. Here’s a link to the story on digtriad.com.

I looked back at the records of a gauge in the Dan River near where the tubers were rescued.  What I found was pretty shocking.

The heaviest of the rain in the area Thursday morning occurred around 7:45 a.m. Now, there is always a delay in water rise in rivers after a heavy rain because it takes time for the rain water to runoff into the river from the surrounding land. At 9:45 a.m. the river gauge near Wentworth reported a water level of 4.01′ and a flow rate of 2.25 kcfs (1,000 cubic feet per second). An hour later the river had risen to 4.14′ and the flow rate increased to 2.35 kcfs. Then, a little more than an hour later (12 p.m.), the river had risen to 5.19′ with a flow rate increasing to 3.19 kcfs. The river continued to rise and the flow rate continue to increase through the day before it crested at 4:15 p.m. at 7.91′ with a flow rate of 5.30 kcfs. In the end, the river rose about 4 feet and increased nearly 2.5 times in speed. Here is a link to the actual gauge readings.

After looking at the rapid change in conditions on the river it is no surprise that the tubers ran into issues. And I’ll be honest, this was a sobering reminder of just how quickly conditions can change on a river even if the weather isn’t necessarily bad in your area. Whenever you are out on the river you need to pay attention to what the weather is like upstream as all of the runoff water will feed into the river and build downstream. In then end, fortunately nobody was injured and hopefully we all can learn a lesson from this example of how closely connected the river conditions are to the weather.

Until next time…

Grant