Rain, Storms to Soak the Southeast

By Frank Strait, Senior Meteorologist

September 30, 2012; 3:04PM,EDT

 

 

 

 

A storm system that brought flash floods to parts of Texas Saturday and the Deep South on Sunday will affect areas along the Eastern Seaboard through the first part of the week.
Rainfall totals were as high as 10.72 inches in Nacogdoches, Texas, over the weekend, with 5.84 inches in Monroe, La. A large part of the area between the Mississippi River and the Rockies has seen at least 2 inches of rainfall through the weekend.
There were a few reports of damaging winds and two tornadoes touched down in Texas as well.
Sunday night into Monday, the storm center will track into and through the Tennessee Valley. Much of Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee is subject to seeing 1-3 inches of rain during this time with locally higher amounts. With rainfall running above normal in this area over the last month, there will be some potential for flooding.
Meanwhile, a trailing cold front will cause isolated instances of wind damage, hail and perhaps an isolated tornado or two farther south near the Gulf Coast from southeastern Louisiana to the Florida panhandle.

Through Tuesday, the storm will slowly pull north and the trailing cool front will reach Virginia and the Carolinas. While the threat for excessive rainfall will diminish, the potential for a few damaging thunderstorms will still exist over the eastern Carolinas and the Tidewater area of Virginia.
Showers and thunderstorms will also be found Tuesday from this storm in the Ohio Valley, and a few storms in this area may be strong enough to cause damage as well.
Showers will push into the Northeast later Tuesday into Tuesday night. However, the threat for heavy rainfall will be diminishing as the storm will begin to weaken and pull away from the rich moisture supply from the Gulf of Mexico.
At midweek, the storm will track through the Great Lakes and parts of the northeast. Tuesday night into Wednesday will bring the only good chance for wet weather in the I-95 corridor from Philadelphia to Boston as well, since the trailing front will cause a scattering of showers and thunderstorms in that area Wednesday.
The storm's weakening trend is fortunate, since most of the Northeast has seen above-normal rainfall during September and any excessive rain would cause flooding.
The storm will exit into Canada on Thursday, but showers may still linger over parts of New England.