Scenes of Incredible Flooding

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These are from the Columbia, SC area this morning:



The photo above is of an emptied lake after a dam breach.

Police, fire and emergency management say that all resources are deployed and they cannot come close to getting to everyone needing rescue. There is complete coverage at AccuWeather.

Here is the 24-hour rainfall to 8am this morning. White > 10 inches. Some areas had more than 16 inches in 24 hours.

From the NWS, here are the three-day rainfalls using a different color scale. In this case, white is more than twenty inches!

The rain isn't close to ending. This is the latest AccuWeather Regional Radar (10:20am EDT). I added the black arrow to show the direction of movement of the rain.

Here is the forecast for additional rainfall between now and midnight. Columbia is forecast by the HRRR model (courtesy, Dr. Ryan Maue, click to enlarge) to receive about another 5" with a similar amount at Charleston.

It is vital to realize that this disaster isn't anywhere near over. 

The flash flooding will continue into this evening. The rain will rapidly taper off after sunset.

 The mainstem river flooding will worsen in many areas for at least another 2-3 days. Some rivers will be above flood stage for a week or more. Unfortunately, I couldn't get a full overview to share with you as some of the river gauges have already been taken off line either by power failure, debris in the water, etc.

I'll update again on the catastrophic flooding later today.

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