As much as 3 inches of rain possible for Central Va.

Staff writers Justin Faulconer, Dave Thompson and Sarah Watson contributed
Published: August 26, 2008

Remnants of Tropical Storm Fay should bring a pretty good soaking to the Lynchburg area today — the first measurable rainfall this month.

After dumping heavy rain from Florida through North Carolina over the past several days, Fay is expected to bring as much as three inches of rain to Central Virginia through Thursday, maybe more, according to the National Weather Service in Blacksburg.

With the rainfall deficit at nearly 12 inches for the year, the wet stuff is most welcome.

“We’re looking to the sky,” Nathan Prill, director of Bedford County’s farm service agency, said Tuesday afternoon.

Bedford, Campbell and Amherst counties have asked Gov. Timothy M. Kaine for disaster-area declarations because of the drought, which Prill said has left crops, pastures and farmers suffering.

“It’s going to take sustained rainfall to get the agriculture situation in Bedford back up to speed,” Prill said.

Meteorologist William Perry, with the National Weather Service in Blacksburg, said the rain is moving slowly across the area and mixing with two systems bringing in moisture, one from the Gulf of Mexico, one from the Atlantic Ocean.

“You get that double impact, so you tend to get more rain from that,” he said.

In Campbell County, which last week issued a drought advisory asking residents to monitor their water use, today’s rain could postpone plans to purchase water from Lynchburg to supplement the county’s public water supply drawn from the Otter River.

Campbell County Utilities and Service Authority administrator Mike Damron said he had expected to start purchasing water from Lynchburg within the next day or two. But if the Otter River watershed gets at least an inch of rain, that move can be put aside for now.

“If we get an inch, that would help immediately. If we can get a couple inches, that would help for a while,” he said.

The county remains under a drought advisory and Damron asks that residents be conservative with their water use. “It’s going to take a lot of rain to get back to normal, so we’re watching this closely on a daily basis,” he said.

Well users in particular need to be conservative because groundwater levels take much longer to recharge than surface water, Damron said.

Groundwater also is a significant water source to the Otter River, James River and Pedlar Reservoir, so repeated weather events with slow and steady rain are important.

Pedlar Reservoir, the source for Lynchburg’s water, has been below the spillway since early June, several months earlier than usual. The city switched over using water from the James River earlier this month, also earlier than usual.

Since then, the reservoir’s watershed has seen little to no rain and is now 165 inches below the spillway.

If the Pedlar watershed gets several inches of rain during the next few days, “it probably would not fill the reservoir, but definitely raise it significantly,” city utilities director Tim Mitchell said.

How high the water rises will depend on what kind of rain the watershed gets, Mitchell said. A hard fast rain will raise the level quickly, but won’t increase groundwater levels, which is a significant water source for the reservoir.

“A slow, steady rain would take a longer period of time, but it would be more sustainable, where it wouldn’t all run off. There would be more a feed from groundwater into the reservoir.”

Keeping in mind that Campbell County may be using water from Lynchburg, Mitchell said there have been discussions on what the next water-management steps would be, but any decision will be made after the storm

passes.

“There’s always a concern that it’s not going to be sustainable and we’ll continue into a dry period,” Mitchell said.

“So we’ll be happy to get any rainfall at all, but if we can get a slow, soaking rain now and follow it up with more rainfall events, that would be the best situation.”

Perry said that is possible. Hurricane Gustav, which hit Haiti Tuesday, could follow a trajectory similar to Fay’s and give the area similar effects next week, he said.

The last city rainfall that brought more than half an inch came on May 11, when the meter at the Lynchburg Regional Airport measured .87 inches.