right, but that “normal rainfall” was on top of weeks and weeks of heavy rainfall - it started raining in December and it just didn’t quit until early June, it’s been kind of ridiculous this year. Mind you flash flooding in this part of the Appalachians is always a concern with heavy rainfall, but you actually have to be near a creek for that concern to be realized!
Don’t get me wrong, I have a healthy respect for hurricanes, I still have “wind” PTSD from Andrew and decades in SFL. But after living 20 years up here, you start to understand how the Appalachians impact the weather patterns. Stuff that comes across Texas or the gulf splits left or right of them, stuff that comes from the east coast veers northward away from them. Not always, because hurricanes are inherently unpredictable, BUT heavy rainfall from a stalled system (like Houston last year) generally requires that the back half of the 'cane is still over warm water recharging which puts it pretty far from Tryon, especially if it lands over by OBX. And even if the outer bands reach Tryon that is a lot of land, including the northern mountains, to cross before the northern (wet) bands swing over it. That tends to knock the starch out of a system.
And on that note, as of this morning, NOAA has Tryon at the 5% marginal for flash flooding and rainfall accumulations under 2"… Honestly, if WEG wasn’t scheduled I would expect that Tryon would be a good evacuation option.
Now the one thing that will be a mess is that TIEC still has SO MUCH uncovered dirt surrounding it, no mulch or grass, just delightful red clay. That’s not gonna be pretty…
