Flood Warning — Ashe, NC; Watauga, NC; Wilkes, NC was recorded by Global Incident Tracker on Sunday, 11 October 2026 at 12:34 UTC. The event is classified as a flood incident with a severity rating of Severe, and was detected through the US National Weather Service (NWS).
Flood Warning issued October 11 at 8:34AM EDT until October 11 at 10:00AM EDT by NWS Blacksburg VA * WHAT...Urban areas and small streams flooding caused by excessive rainfall continues. * WHERE...South Central Ashe County in northwestern North Carolina... Watauga County in northwestern North Carolina... Southwestern Wilkes County in northwestern North Carolina... * WHEN...Until 1000 AM EDT. * IMPACTS...Flooding of rivers, creeks, streams, and other low-lying and flood-prone locations is occurring. Several streams and rivers continue to rise due to recent heavy rain, including the Watauga River near the communities of Banner Elk and Foscoe, where multiple side roads crossing the river may remain flooded through 11 AM. These include Sleepy Hollow Lane, Clubhouse Drive, and Aldridge Road. Near the Town of Boone, portions of Deerfield Road and Bamboo Road are flooded and impassible. Othe
Where this happened
The incident is located in United States (North America), whose capital is Washington, D.C.. Historically, United States is most affected by hurricanes, wildfires, tornadoes, earthquakes and floods. You can follow every incident recorded in this country, updated live, on the United States incident tracker.
Approximate coordinates of the reported event are 36.184°, -81.610°. The marker on the map above shows this position; for news-derived reports the location reflects the place named in media coverage and may represent a district or city rather than an exact site.
Understanding flood events
River, flash, urban and coastal flooding events. Flood damage depends less on total rainfall than on how fast water arrives and where it has to go. Flash floods in urban areas can rise within minutes because sealed surfaces stop absorption, while river floods build over days and allow more warning time.
How severity is rated
Global Incident Tracker rates every event on a four-step scale — Minor, Moderate, Severe and Extreme — derived from the source signal: earthquake magnitude, official GDACS alert colour, or the volume of independent media reporting for news-derived incidents. This event is currently rated Severe. Ratings can change as more information becomes available, and a rating is a monitoring signal rather than an official government assessment.
Safety guidance for flood situations
- Never walk or drive through floodwater — 15 cm of moving water can knock you down and 60 cm can float a car.
- Move to higher floors or higher ground early; do not wait for water to reach you.
- Switch off electricity at the mains if water is entering the building and it is safe to reach.
- Treat all floodwater as contaminated: wash hands, boil drinking water and clean wounds.
- Follow only official instructions from local authorities and emergency services — this page is a monitoring record, not an emergency alert.
Data and verification
This record was generated automatically from the US National Weather Service (NWS) and de-duplicated against our archive. Early reports for any incident can be revised: locations get refined, magnitudes are recalculated and impact figures change as assessments arrive. We deliberately do not publish casualty numbers unless an official source states them. The original source report is linked at the top of this page.
Keep watching the situation on our live world incident map, browse every floods we track on the Flood tracker, or see today's global picture on the incidents today page.
Timeline and sources
Official warning
Issued by U.S. National Weather Service. A warning or forecast describes a hazard; on its own it is not a report that harm occurred.
How statuses are decided · the number of reports is never treated as confirmation.
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· received · event time 11 Oct 2026, 12:34 UTCFirst report Official warning
First recorded from U.S. National Weather Service.
Times are when this site received each report, in UTC; the event time is shown where the source gave one. Copies of one syndicated story count as one report.
Conditions at the time
Heavy rainfall of 110 mm was recorded that day, and the temperature peaked at 18°C, and winds reached 31 km/h. Conditions are shown for context only — they do not establish a cause.
Weather reanalysis for this location and date via Open-Meteo.