Flood advisory issued for Emigration Creek

SALT LAKE CITY — The National Weather Service Salt Lake City office issued a flood advisory for Emigration Creek Sunday night.

“We’re expecting it to hit action stage tonight around midnight,” said lead meteorologist Christine Kruse. ” And then, like normal with snowmelt, it’ll decrease by morning, then increase again into the next night, and may be as high as flood stage.”

Emigration Creek was forecast to crest at around 125 cubic feet per second between 9 p.m. Sunday and 4 a.m. Monday.

Kruse said it’s possible water will pool into yards and parks. She added it will likely crest Monday and Tuesday night.

“If you think about cubic feet per second, that’s like a basketball of water, so it’s like 140 basketballs passing you every second; that’s what we think this crest is going to be, around 140 CFS,” Kruse explained.

A Flood Advisory has been issued for Emigration Creek as it is forecast to crest at 125 cfs between 9PM and 4AM tonight, above action stage. This is a great time for enhanced awareness/preparedness, and many flood mitigation tools are already in place for the affected areas #utwx pic.twitter.com/9kGGmaBdGE

— NWS Salt Lake City (@NWSSaltLakeCity) April 16, 2023

She said homeowners and business owners in the area should prepare Sunday afternoon.

“This is a great time for enhanced awareness/preparedness, and many flood mitigation tools are already in place for the affected areas,” the  NWS tweet said.

“If you’ve had problems in the previous warm-up at Emigration Creek, I would just check all of the mitigation that you did last time to be sure it’s still in order before we go into the rise tonight,” Kruse added.

The creek was already flowing heavily when a backed-up culvert overflowed its banks and flooded a yard and driveway on Tuesday.