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Marietta expects additional floods

MARIETTA — Seven-day forecasts put Marietta into a major flood this weekend, according to both the North American Ensemble Forecast System and the Global Ensemble Forecast System.

However, the short-term National Weather Service model used often for local river level predictions maintains that the Ohio River will stay below flood stage.

The NAEFS and the GEFS are joint weather forecast models of which the U.S. National Weather Service is a participant.

According to the seven-day forecast on the river levels for the Ohio River at Marietta’s gauge, simulations by the NAEFS predict a 50 percent chance that Marietta will see 40 feet of water by 7 a.m. Sunday with water still rising to at least 44 feet Monday. Flood stage is 35 feet.

This forecast can be tracked at http://bit.ly/NAEFSmarietta.

According to the GEFS seven-day forecast on river levels for the Ohio River at Marietta, the estimated chance the Ohio River will rise above major flood level is 90 percent.

The National Weather service issued a flood watch in effect this evening through Sunday at 7 a.m.

“A cold front will stall over the area bringing several rounds of heavy rainfall starting Thursday night,” said the warning issued at 3 p.m. Wednesday. “Waves of significant precipitation will continue to move across into Sunday.”

The National Weather Service graph with current levels and forecasts, available at mariettaoh.net, shows the river will rise to only 32.8 feet by Sunday, but Joe Tucker, the city engineer, has received reports of discrepancies between what the graph has stated and what others measured this past weekend.

He said Wednesday that he would look into these reports today and find out why the National Weather Service graph differs so drastically from the NAEFS and GEFS charts.

Marietta Area Chamber of Commerce President Carrie Ankrom sent out an email to all chamber members stating that the predictions should be taken into consideration as locals make weekend plans for their homes and businesses.

“After the disastrous flood of 2004, river level prediction models and algorithms have improved and, as a result, have become more accurate. In fact, most of the loss in 2004 was due to an erroneous notification that the river had crested when, in fact, it was on the rise and aggressively so. This early crest prediction led people to relax, which left little time to respond when the accurate prediction was handed down,” she wrote.

“Of course, the high water was a problem itself, but the lack of time to move inventory and other goods out of harm’s way created the most damage. Let’s not let that happen again.”

She noted that benchmarks are geospecific and reminded local business owners and residents not to take predictions for other locations and apply them.

“A 40.1-foot benchmark in Marietta is entirely different than the same benchmark in Wheeling, Newport or Parkersburg,” she said. “The longer-term prediction is based on predicted events that can be expected to drift one way or another, so, just as in hurricane path predictions, we can see higher or lower levels, or, our own cone of uncertainty. Please note this is worst case scenario but should make you aware of what the weekend could hold. Now is the time to be proactive, create a plan (if you do not already have one) and think about taking the proper precautions to protect your business/residence.”

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