Flood watch issued for the Philly region as ‘several rounds’ of rain are expected Tuesday
Showers and thunderstorms are possible throughout the day.
Following a serene Monday with clear skies and high temperatures in the mid-80s, the Philadelphia region on Tuesday is expected to face another threat of severe weather.
The National Weather Service office in Mount Holly has issued a flood watch that is slated to be in effect from 6 a.m. Tuesday through 2 a.m. Wednesday as possible thunderstorms and showers make their way to the region. That potentially unsettled weather is expected to bring “several rounds” of rain that could result in flash flooding throughout the watch period, the weather service said in a Monday forecast.
“Even the first round we get could result in flooding,” said Paul Fitzsimmons, lead meteorologist at the weather service’s Mount Holly office. “With successive rounds, that results in an increased threat.”
The idea, Fitzsimmons added, is that once the ground is saturated with rain, the precipitation from future rounds of rain will have few places, if any, to go. He added that initial rains are likely to arrive during the morning rush, though their exact timing was not clear.
Additional, more organized rounds of rain were expected to arrive later in the day, with multiple storms potentially hitting the region into the overnight period, according to the weather service. Rainfall rates could push into the neighborhood of one to two inches per hour at times.
The most severe weather, which could bring damaging winds, hail, and a possible tornado, is likely between 2 p.m. and 8 p.m., Fitzsimmons said.
Tuesday is also likely to see high temperatures in the 80s, but with very high humidity to start out. The forecast storms stand to alleviate some of that humidity, opening the way for cooler, drier days to come later this week.
The storms expected Tuesday are the latest to descend upon the Philadelphia region. Severe weather was predicted for Saturday, but largely remained tame, and the previous weekend, a series of “microburst” storms with high winds toppled hundreds of trees in the area, leading to serious, localized damage in the city and suburbs.
It is not uncommon for weather setups to arrive with similar impacts in this way, Fitzsimmons said. It is, however, hard to say how long those patterns might last.
“There is something to the idea where you can get into patterns that repeat themselves,” he said.
