Beneficial Rains For Most

There were several reports of flash flooding around central PA yesterday. Although the storms never made it into our area, that is ok. The rains fell over some of the driest parts of the state. So that is good. Flash flooding isn’t good, but the rain is mostly beneficial.

The threat for flash flooding will continue to grow, however. Why?  Well, a very, very moist atmosphere will stay in place through Tue. Every day it could rain, but like yesterday, it will dry for most of the time through Saturday. Every day it rains, the ground moistens, and eventually as ground moistens it cannot absorb as much, leading to increased run off. So the flash flood threat increases. It really increases Sun – Tue. This is when a super slow moving front, interacting with deep tropical moisture and a tropical disturbance (see map) will unleash some widespread heavy rains over much of the state. This set up is a drought busting set up for many in our state.

Again I fully expect 2”+ or rain to be widespread throughout our region, with locally much higher amounts possible.

After this deep tropical moisture leaves by midweek next week, a much broader, deeper trough will begin to take over for a little while. This will lead to a period of much cooler and drier air for the eastern half to 2/3rd of the US. So the latter half of August will be quite pleasant it appears. But over-all that trough in the east/northeast and ridge to our west pattern, with variations from week to week, is still holding strong.
 
Points for Next 7 Days:

1. Heavy Showers/Thunderstorms: Thu, Fri and Sat. Storms will contain torrential downpours with risk for flash flooding, esp. in more urban areas.   
2. Widespread Showers/Storms with Heavy Rain: Sun - Tue. Hard to pinpoint the most likely time, but all three time periods could be very wet at times. Models are not handling these days too well, so I’m ignoring them and going with what seems to be most likely. The tricky part is that the tropical disturbance, although weak, will be pulled NE, and that energy will impact the generation of rain. Models don’t always show that well. And exactly when is the big question.
3. Hot and Humid: Thu – Tue. Temps during the day with enough sun will reach either side of 90 by a degree or two. But the main story in the very high humidity. Dew-point temps in the 70s will remain through Monday, so overnight lows will not get below 70 until Wed morning. So no nighttime cooling.

 
Details:
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Today: 90. Partly to mostly sunny. Humid. Chance for showers and thunderstorms.
         
Friday: 93. Partly to mostly sunny. Hot. Humid. Chance for showers and thunderstorms.         

Saturday: 92. Partly to mostly sunny. Hot. Humid. Chance for showers/thunderstorms.      

Sunday: 88. Partly to mostly sunny. Hot. Humid. Showers/thunderstorms likely late and overnight  

Monday: 84. Partly to mostly cloudy. Humid. Showers/thunderstorms likely.  

Tuesday: 84. Partly to mostly cloudy. Humid. Showers/thunderstorms likely.  

Wednesday: 86. Partly to mostly sunny. Humid. Chance for showers/thunderstorms.