Name: Heavy Rain in North Carolina, August 24, 2019
Start: 2019-08-24T18:26
End: 2019-08-24T18:26
Location: North Carolina

Where it happened

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The toll

Deaths: 0
Injuries: 0
Property damage: $10,000
Crop damage: None recorded
Events: 1

Deaths and injuries are direct and indirect together, as the offices filed them. Damage is property and crops in the dollars of the year, not adjusted for inflation, and only where an office estimated it.

What happened

The episode as NWS GSP wrote it up.

An isolated, slow-moving heavy rain shower developed during the Swain/Graham County, NC border, producing 2 to 3 inches of rain in just a couple of hours in the Nantahala Gorge. This resulted in several localized debris flows/landslides.

What forecasters said that day

The local office's own words before the first event, as it sent them, from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's archive of National Weather Service text.

NWS Greenville-Spartanburg, SC wrote its last area forecast discussion before the first event at Aug 23, 6:46 PM EST, 23 hours 40 minutes earlier.

Area forecast discussion, Aug 23, 6:46 PM EST, 23 hours 40 minutes before

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The radar

The national radar mosaic for the moment the first event began.

Open the radar archive at this moment

Event by event

1 heavy rain. Local standard time, as filed.

Heavy Rain, Swain

When: August 24, 6:26 PM EST
Where: Swain County, 1.32 mi ENE of Talc Mtn
Property damage: $10,000
Reported by: Emergency Manager
Coordinates: 35.330, -83.630

Emergency manager reported multiple landslides occurred through the Nantahala Gorge after an isolated, slow-moving shower produced 2 to 3 inches of rain in a couple of hours. Initiation of debris flows may have been enhanced by soil and vegetation weakness due to wildfires that impacted the area in late 2016. Multiple vehicles were trapped between areas of debris on Highway 19/74. Clean up of debris from the highway and also from the Nantahala River to make way for recreation took almost two weeks.

What these are

Heavy Rain: Rainfall totals unusual for the place and season that did not produce a flood.

After NWS Directive 10-1605, the rules offices file Storm Data by.

The same day elsewhere

More

Every storm in North Carolina in 2019 Every state in 2019 This day in weather history Warnings in North Carolina, August 2019

Sources

NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database, compiled from the National Weather Service’s monthly Storm Data. Complete through 2026-06; NCEI adds each month about 75 days after it ends and revises past years a few times a year. Rebuilt 2026-10-01. Each event’s entry at NCEI: 854424.