Potential Ice Jam Flooding Remains As Milder Air Continues

JAMESTOWN – It is another mild and sunny day out there to kick off a new workweek as southerly winds continue to pump in mild air acorss the region.

The National Weather Service maintains a Flood Watch for Chautauqua and Cattaraugus Counties until 1 a.m. on Thursday. With the combination of warmer temperatures and melting snow and ice, comes the threat for some flooding relating to ice jams.

Streams and rivers around the area have built up thick ice over the course of the winter. As we start a rapid meltdown of the snow and ice packs, water levels could rise causing the ice to break up and flow downstream where they could create a jam in narrow openings, leading to flooding.

If you live in a flood-prone area, pay attention to all flood advisories and warnings and take action accordingly.

A system will scoot by the region tonight and early Tuesday, bringing some rain along with it. Rain will be more widespread in coverage overnight, tapering to a few showers for Tuesday morning.

Computer modeling is depicting insignificant rainfall amounts. The new data from our exclusive high resolution BAMS model is only bringing in about two tenths of an inch of rain, at most.

As we all know, you take any warm days you can get around here in February and this year won’t be any different. Signs seem to point to things turning much colder once again by the weekend.