The remnants of Hurricane Ivan tracked up through the Appalachians and through the eastern third of the Ohio River Basin from Thursday, September 16^th, 2004 through Saturday, September 18^th, 2004.  Ivan made landfall the morning of Wednesday, September 16^th, 2004 near Mobile Bay along Alabama's gulf coast as a Category 3 hurricane and had been as strong as a Category 5 when it first entered the Gulf of Mexico. It was pulled north from the Deep South by a cold front exiting the Plains. This front provided further enhancement and acted as a focus for the deep, tropical moisture provided by Ivan.  Regional precipitation average totals ran from 4 to 5 inches in an axis from eastern Kentucky, up through and along the Ohio River between Ohio and West Virginia, and on into western Pennsylvania.  Locally, amounts even ranged as high 7 to 9 inches.  Coincidentally, Ivan followed nearly the same path through the basin as the remnants of Hurricane Frances had only a week earlier, which, obviously, greatly aggravated flooding concerns.

The following graphic shows a 3-day total including all of the rainfall from Ivan.

The 20-day graphic below shows the total precipitation for September so far (through Sep. 20, 2004).  This include rainfall totals from both Frances and Ivan.  Most of this rainfall was from the remnants of the two hurricanes, although there were some scattered thunderstorms in association with two cold fronts in Illinois, Indiana, and northwest Ohio prior to each event.

The following graphic shows how the graphic above compares to what is normal to this point in the month.

The graphic below is a plot of a color-coded status of numerous river gauges shown.   Red, magenta, and orange show locations where the river is in flood.  Yellow dots represent where the river is just under flood stage at the time of this plot.

The Pittsburgh graph of the river stage is shown below.

Ivan-related Photos

View of Ivan over the Carribean Sea as viewed from the International Space Station..