The Train of Rain

Track The Storm On Our Current Weather Page

This morning's radar shows rain -- and lots of it -- across Pennsylvania and interior portions of the Mid Atlantic.   Off and on light rain has fallen in Philadelphia overnight -- not much, as expected, since the lion's share of the event will take place this afternoon and tonight.   Computer modeling is still painting a rather robust event -- two to three inches of rain on the GFS, two to four inches of rain on the NAM for Pennsylvania, with one to two inches of rain east of I-95.   This type of rainfall will yield flooding for many streams, particularly to our north and west.

Expect light rainfall this morning before rainfall becomes steadier -- and then heavier -- during the afternoon hours.  This steadier/heavier rain may take a while to reach the Shore but during the evening hours we should see the entire region get hit with a couple of rounds of heavier rain.  Higher resolution computer modeling (below) shows the bulk and brunt of the storm comes this evening and tonight.  Rain continues to spread northward, increasing in intensity, while a cold front approaches from the southwest (marked by thunderstorms that may develop across Virginia and the Carolinas) and crossing the region in the pre-dawn hours on Friday.

This is a longer-duration storm than we're used to -- the storm will also not be as bad this morning as it will be this evening, which means flooding problems may start overnight in earnest as opposed to during the day on local streams and roadways.

We'll probably set daily rainfall records today (generally between 1.25 and 1.70 inches regionwide) and have an outside shot at the single day rainfall record for March (for Philly, 2.79").   While the combined event total may exceed three inches, it is quite possible that enough of that will fall on Friday in the pre-dawn hours to keep us just shy of the single day record.   No matter how you slice it, it's a lot of rain...and it will be pretty ugly out there by this evening.