SHADYSIDE — The loss of life on June 14, 1990, in Shadyside was a fluke combination of severe weather phenomena coupled with an unpredictable storm. While the storm could always happen again, experts are hopeful that earlier predictions and a swift public response could prevent another tragedy.

A strong thunderstorm dropped 12.7 cm of rain — 5 inches — largely within the first hour of the storm, according to the data collected by the National Weather Service. The heavy rainfall over such a short amount of time caused flash flooding within an hour after the rain began, while the storm churned stationary over the area for about 90 minutes. The Wegee and Pipe Creek basins quickly swelled and a wall of water — several meters deep, by some estimates ­– washed through the area, killing 26 and damaging or destroying as many as 300 homes.

According to a 1996 research report from the University of Kentucky on monitoring and modeling flash floods, gust fronts from storms that had raged across the Midwest the previous day had set the groundwork for the cataclysmic storm, as winds formed a western boundary. Meanwhile, thunderstorms in western Pennsylvania developed to the southwest and merged with other weather systems already forming over Shadyside. The report states that upslope flow — where air flows over higher terrain, and is thus forced to rise — may have further intensified the development of the storm.

Furthermore, the downpour came at the end of several days of rain locally, which saturated the plants and soil so much that when the rains really came down, there was nowhere left for it to go but downhill as runoff.

Lee Hendricks, a hydrologist with the National Weather Service in Pittsburgh for nearly 35 years, is the last one still working at the station to remember the flood when he was still a fresh face. Hendricks described the storm as forming at the crux of a number of different weather systems which came together to form some seriously wet weather.

“There was the ‘Mexican connection,’ a plume of very warm, very moist air coming out from Mexico, and it traveled eastward along that front which helped feed the rain showers and thunderstorms we had,” Hendricks said. “It was a ‘warm rain’ event, which means the storms were very tall, and everything in this event was above freezing. A warm rain event tends to be very efficient, and brings heavy rain. … In Cadiz, which was our closest station at the time, they reported 5 inches of rain.”

While the water certainly came fast and hard, meteorologists may have had days worth of warning to anticipate the storm, if not its severity. A report on the flood compiled by the NWS and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in 1991 states that as far back as June 12, meteorological data indicated a storm would be likely, though it was not expected to be severe enough to justify advising residents to evacuate to safety.

“However, no national or locally derived guidance indicated the magnitude of the event which was to occur later that evening over Shadyside,” the report states. “During the event, no information was received … which suggested that a warning should be issued for Belmont County. While the forecasters’ focus was clearly on an increasing thunderstorm threat, it was not obvious that excessive rainfall and eventual flash flooding would occur in Belmont County. Reports of severe flooding near Shadyside did not reach NWS offices until about (four) hours after the flood had ended.”

Hendricks agreed that little could have been done to prevent the tragedy, as 1990 was an entirely different time in terms of communication with local agencies and reporting stations, and comparatively primitive computing and radar equipment which led to drastic underestimation of the amount of rain that was coming. Today, Hendricks said, there are more than 100 formal cooperative observers in the tri-state region to accurately report rainfall levels.

While Hendricks said the weather conditions to create another storm of that magnitude could come again, the real game changer in today’s world would be the significantly increased reporting capability of the weather service and the ability to disseminate information to local residents in time to get them to safety, averting the loss of life.

“Meteorologically, yeah, it could certainly happen again …” he said. “Today, I think the (response) would be far more effective than it was in 1990. A lot more people are connected to the weather than we were then, with the internet, smartphones, that would work to get information out.

“We also have the emergency managers everywhere from the state level all the way down to the boroughs, who are more aware of what’s going on and their response capacity. … We do have radio sites in eastern Ohio now, so that we can get the information from there to include any flood warnings.”