Humboldt County Drenched as Atmospheric River Causes Minor Flooding
Flood waters lap around the base of a yellow home in the Bayside area. [Photo by Jaymi Hadley]
These photos, taken yesterday on February 3, capture the storm’s aftermath as muddy water inundated roads, fields, and pushed against residents’ homes.
A vehicle plows through water on Freshwater Road. [Photo from a reader]
In Freshwater, vehicles pushed through submerged areas even after Humboldt County Public Works declared Freshwater Road flooded from a 1/2 mile from Myrtle Ave. and Howard Heights.
While in Bayside, properties and barns were surrounded by floodwaters, leaving fences barely visible above the murky tide. Creek banks overflowed into neighboring fields, turning pastures into temporary lakes and forcing some residents to drive through submerged roads in order to get home.
Trees stand in flowing water near Bayside, their trunks partially submerged as runoff continues to pour through the region.. [Photo by Jaymi Hadley]
With just under 69 inches since the water year began in October on our unofficial gauge here in Salmon Creek west of Miranda and many months of traditional wet weather left, we are looking at a very good rain year.
Join the discussion! For rules visit: https://kymkemp.com/commenting-rules
Comments system how-to: https://wpdiscuz.com/community/postid/10599/
Thank you Kym for always keeping us informed during these weather events. Keep safe out there folks!
Currently as of 6:15 AM, the Eel River isjust over 8 inches below Major flood stage at Fernbridge…(24.31feet)
25 feet is Major Flood Stage there…
And it looks possible that the river still hasn’t crested…
Continued…
https://northcoastaviation.com/weather/river_data/eel_river_levels.htm
As of 7:15 AM The Eel River at Fernbridge has risen further to 24.49 feet, (that’s up 0.18 feet in the last hour)…
If it continues rising at that rate, it will likely begin exceeding Major Flood Stage, (25 feet) by around 10:30 AM…
They need to fix their Webcam links. Fortunas is 404 and the domain name for the Fernbridge one is up for sale. $18k is a bit out of my price range.
This global warming is getting outta hand!
As long as Humboldt gets a few dry spells between big rains, we will be OK.
There is a place in Plumas County call Four Trees, over twelve inches.
With just under 69 inches…
Wow! I measured about 48 inches of rain. I am just east of Garberville at Sawmill Rd.
45 inches here in Carlotta by Cuddeback
We’re close to Honeydew and Petrolia, Humboldt’s wet weather Queens. One person there said they had hit 100″ in that area.
Teresa’s gauge said that! Here near A.Way, about 75″ season-to-date. But i count from July 1, so there is about 2 more inches in my report than those of people starting 3 months later.
The Mattole is State Champ on rain. Gasquet gets uppity but they have the Camp Six USFS official gauge station that they can drive to most of the winter. SOHUM readings are more scattered, periodic and incomplete, but don’t be fooled.
24.66 feet, as of 8:15 AM, up 0.17 feet in one hour…
Right on track to hit major flood stage, (25 feet), by about 10:15 AM
(just 4 inches higher to go)…
No major flooding at 10:30, well…not as bad as it could at 24+ feet. Road is still open.. Tides are out so that is a huge benefit right now.
NOAA must have smoked one…
Their information was apparently WAY off…
By like 4 FEET…!!!
SMDH…
Sorry if I alarmed anyone by relaying it…
The gauge was malfunctioning. https://www.facebook.com/NWSEureka/posts/pfbid0i9kJSTQhaQwEijn6FE8M7Xgh8DGt38JoKcX9JQMAeMbApDAptGNHeGwBEPKwfhsql
??,
Who knew…???
? ?
That figures…
Boy, did I ever pick the exact wrong time to monitor the data, and put my faith in “science”…
Now my name is mud, and my reputation is SHOT…!!!
I thought I had THE SCOOP…!!!
I thought I was sharing the up to date information, on the hour, ever hour…
DOH….!!!
?
I kept wondering why you hadn’t already reported the corresponding closure by “the major flooding” of Highway 211 at Fernbridge…?♂️?♂️
How embarrassing…?
I would have figured it it out sooner, if the Fernbridge live cam would have been functional…
Ah, yes, the universe has a sense of humor, and it chose to make a fool out of me today…
How humbling…
That’s what I get, I guess, for paying too close of attention, and thinking I was on the ball…
LOL
Wait a minute. Your posts alerted to me that something was wrong. If I hadn’t have been so busy today, I would have reached out to US Weather Service for an explanation myself. I actually checked their page a couple of times preparing to call them and wanting to make sure that they hadn’t put out info to explain before I called. Then I would get distracted.
Looks like the guage began to malfunction about 36 hours before it was finally corrected, which was a few hours after I called attention to the unusually high readings…
I can only hope that by my posting the unusual out of forecast parameter readings information on RHBB, that it accelerated it’s correction…
Wishful thinking, I know, but what else have I got…???
Just my pesky darn hyper observance kicking in again…
Hopefully it helped…
I wouldn’t want them to think that no one was actually paying close attention to their data…
? ?
Like I already said, to their credit, their forecast River levels are never that far off, but if I’m not mistaken, the forecast crest time was 12 hours off, but I’ll need to double check that, because I’d be safer to assume it was my mistake, not theirs, even with the mixup that already happened today…
I thought I remembered the crest forecast to be happening about midnight or 1:00AM last night, but that’s got to be my error, not theirs…
You can actually see where on the graph and when the glitch occurred, in my post in this comment…
https://kymkemp.com/2025/02/03/road-closures-chain-controls-and-winter-travel-tips/#comment-1803855
It’s the short thin vertical line in the wider blue rising water level line, to the left of center, that suddenly “increased” about 4 feet in river level for no apparent reason right between when Sunday ended, and when Monday began, or thereabouts…
Their guage must have slipped down 4 feet…???
Here is the “current” graph…
It shows the time of the glitch, and the time of the correction…
and the scope of the error…
I’d be willing to bet that this will be the kind of malfunction that is hopefully not going to be seen again for a really long time…
What a wacky graph science thingy…
“How embarrassing”, for me, is what I meant, Kym, not for you…
I regret any misunderstanding I may have caused…
You put your faith in technology, not science. Science is a way of logical thinking. Technology is basically machinery and electronics. All things that involve technology eventually fail.
? ?
Don’t take my jesting too seriously….
My sense of humor is sometimes a hard act to follow…
? ?
61 inches here around Parkway and Ferndale, Crescent City!
The Water Year does begin on October first, but that’s for runoff. The rainfall year begins July first. Usually, it doesn’t make much difference since July, August, and September are pretty dry months for us. Sorry to be pedantic.
what is the source of that information? i have never heard about rainfall water year being separate from runoff water year.
Likewise, I’ve long heard the July 1st part, but never the Oct 1st runoff bit. School me, it’s a good day to learn something new.
Just starting our careers in Humboldt after graduating HSU, we came close to buying that neat little yellow house. I believe it’s right next to Jacoby Creek. My wife, who’s not a risk taker like me, advised us not to buy.
Looks like you two made the right decision!
looking at the picture tells why the place was for sale. Historically, it’s a given at that location.
Yes it is and that area always floods, you remember it before they did a bunch of work? That valley used to fill up so much we have pictures of kayakers out there.
Locals told me 20 years ago it used to be a 10yr flood but changed to every year.
Its pretty sad to see all the trash left in the byshes roadside once the water recedes. Wish they would not have allowed anyone to build in that valley floor.Last time there were lotsa car parts.
24.84 feet as of 9:15 AM, up another consistent 0.18 inches in the last hour, since 8:15 AM…
Considering that it is currently 10:50 AM, I think it is safe to say that the Eel River at Fernbridge is now above Major Flood Stage… (25 feet)…
Eel River level @ 24.99 feet @ 10:15 AM, definitely over 25 feet, and into major flood stage by now….
The original forecast was for the Eel River to have crested at just 21.4 feet EARLY this morning at about 1:00 AM…
https://kymkemp.com/2025/02/03/road-closures-chain-controls-and-winter-travel-tips/#comment-1803855
VERY UNUSUAL for that forecast to have underestimated the river crest by nearly 4 FEET…!!! AND by about 12 hours…!!!
PS…
Currently snowing steadily at 2500′ elevation at 11:30 AM…
This is VERY ODD…
JUST AS SOON AS I CALL OUT THE FORECASTERS FOR MISSING TERRIBLY THE RIVER LEVEL FORECAST, the level reported instantly dropped 0.26 feet, from 24.99 feet to 24.73 feet, and the observed value drops nearly 20 FEET… to 5.12 feet…???
ALSO at exactly 10:15 AM…???
WTF…???
Is the data getting manipulated to cover someone’s forecasting ass that missed that we were headed for major flood stage, when the original forecast was for less than moderate flood stage…!!!???…!!!???
Note the time is the same, 10:15 AM, but the level has instantly dropped 0.26 feet, and the “observed value” is reported as “5.12 feet”, and the graph has a weird vertical blue line indicating a river level drop of nearly 20 FEET…!!!
Huh…!!!???
Dropped 4.39 feet/4.13 feet, from 24.99/24.73 feet, to 20.6 feet, in just 1 hour, 10:15AM to 11:15AM…!!!???
AMAZING…!!!
WTF…???
Can anyone explain this…???
Anyone got pictures of Fernbridge…???
They pulled the plug on their ambitious reporting.
TRG,
The only way that you are going to know for sure how much it is raining you need to measure it yourself. Just ask the many people that do take their own measurements themselves. The official measurements are amazingly strange.
If a guy can’t trust NOAH, er, um, NOAA, who can he trust…???
(Ernie can be trusted, that’s who…)
I should have known something was amiss, as I sure was wondering how the heck the River at Fernbridge could possibly be at 25 feet, yet the 211 road to Ferndale from there was somehow still open…???
Those two things can’t possibly happen at the same time…
And that extra 4 feet would have made quite a bit of difference, as far as how many cows were treading water, or floating away…
I’m glad it was just a glitch, and not a major flood…
Atmospheric river. More key words to increase people’s anxiety. When I was a kid in the 70s we just called it winter. Starting in the early 80s the weather shifted a bit and less rain. It happened again in the 90s and early 2000s. The weather cycles in it’s own. Having the rivers run bank to bank all winter used to be normal. Some areas flooded every year. Everyone just knew where. In 1977 or so we had hurricane winds that took out the drive in in fortuna that was never rebuilt and changed to Hansen truck stop. That is where the overpass for 36 now sits or just north of there in the big lot. Bad weather is nothing new and the last several years have been relative mild.
Saying all that keep safe folks
Crap,
LOL. Welcome to my world. I was born in 1945. Folks that live here now have no Idea the things that I have seen. Strangely, they still try to tell me what happened. If a picture is worth a thousand words, being there is worth a thousand pictures. There is just nothing like experience.
I’m in the mood for a couple, thousand word, short stories, please share some pictures.
The term is apt.
“The average atmospheric river carries an amount of water vapor roughly equivalent to the average flow of water at the mouth of the Mississippi River. Exceptionally strong atmospheric rivers can transport up to 15 times that amount.” https://www.noaa.gov/stories/what-are-atmospheric-rivers#:~:text
I agree with you… the term is apt. The stat about the Mississippi River flow made it all clear. Watching the River Flow
When I hear the anxiety induced predictions from people… I usually ask how long they have lived here. For the “key word” folks it’s usually 10 years or less.
Eel is up close to Kimtu road this morning at 9am. Halfway up the bridge supports at Tooby, and it’s really wide there, wider than I have ever seen it and moving fast. Sloppy and gnarly out there. Be safe, bring in the firewood, it’s going to get really cold.
“Here at our unofficial rain gauge west of Miranda we’ve had just under 11 inches since rain began falling late last week.”
“With just under 69 inches since the water year began in October”
In the vast majority of the USA, that would be considered a huge amount of rain.
Getting snow at 2700ft. I agree with crap. We could float on a innertube around the yard in early 80s. We didn’t call it flooding we called it winter. Atmospheric river makes it sound rare.
Gasquet is often the top rain ‘getter’. You might be right up there ‘with it’.
—
Station ID GASQUET RS
October Not listed
November 23.88″
December 20.23″
January Not Listed
Gasquet Rainfall Statistics · Annual Average 2020–2024. 55.8″
Places around Honeydew blow that away.
Started snowing in Willow Creek.
They call for snow thru 6 and starting again at midnight.
‘Unofficial16 inches so far on Elk Ridge