Lead Forecaster Daniel Crawley
Good Saturday afternoon, the impacts from former Hurricane Ian turned out to be mild for the Western Piedmont and Foothills of Western North Carolina. We can likely thank two key factors to preventing major problems.
First the storm track of Ian gradually shifted east within 36-48 hours of impact. Instead of a system coming in from the south and southwest, we ended up on the western edge of the storm. That shut down any upslope component to the storm in terms of rainfall totals.
I think we can also credit stable conditions at the surface. It helped restrict wind energy aloft from reaching the ground. Just a couple thousand feet off the surface winds were in the 60-75 knot range yesterday. We never fully tapped into that. Now, there were some gusty winds close to 40 mph in the Western Piedmont and it toppled a few trees but once you got back into the foothills and escarpment region, winds at the surface were not as gusty.
Rainfall Summary
The track of Ian and its extra-tropical transition did allow a shield of rainfall to make its way to the eastern slopes of the Blue Ridge. As you can see on the image below, 1-3 inches of rain with locally higher amounts fell across all eight counties in the coverage area. However once you got toward Interstate 26 (Asheville to Spartanburg), rainfall amounts dropped off quickly.
Below is a listing of rainfall amounts from across the coverage area. Data sources include local COOP Stations, CoCoRaHS and spotter reports
Alexander County:
Hiddenite: 1.87
3.4 SSE Taylorsville: 1.78
Ellendale: 1.49
Burke County:
2.1 E Connelly Springs: 2.76
3.3 SSW Valdese: 3.20
3 SSE Morganton: 2.91
2.8 SE Glen Alpine: 2.74
1.4 S Jonas Ridge: 2.10
Caldwell County:
Gamewell: 2.59
Collettesville: 2.35
0.5 NNE Rhodhiss: 2.32
Cajah Mountain: 2.18
1.6 SSW Patterson: 1.69
Catawba County:
2.9 SE Newton: 2.71
3.8 W Maiden: 2.58
1.2 SE Terrell: 2.44
Saint Stephens: 2.33
3.2 NE Hickory: 2.16
Cleveland County:
0.9 WSW Shelby: 3.58
Mooresboro: 3.18
Boiling Springs: 2.98
Kings Mountain: 2.60
Lawndale: 2.50
McDowell County:
Dysartsville: 2.25
Marion COOP: 2.16
Hankins: 1.85
Crooked Creek 1.77
0.8 W Pleasant Gardens: 1.56
Lincoln County:
Crouse: 3.19
Lincolnton: 3.09
Lowesville: 2.61
Iron Station: 2.60
Denver: 2.35
Westport: 2.22
Rutherford County:
Bostic: 3.40
Spindale: 2.18
Green Hill: 2.09