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Yet more rinse-and-repeat flood warnings were posted for Philadelphia and portions of adjacent counties Wednesday as more downpours oozed through the region.
And don’t be surprised if more pop up later in the week, as the atmosphere will remain thickened with so much skin-clinging water vapor that “it’s not going to take much” to turn on the faucets, said Michael Silva, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Mount Holly.
One indicator of the atmospheric saturation: The weather service has posted a heat advisory for Thursday as heat indexes could rise to 100 or better — even though temperatures won’t get much past 90. That is all about the humidity in what could be the start of a more muggy wave, as opposed to a traditional heat wave.
The moisture in the air on Wednesday was such that the rain, which began around lunchtime, ended up being more ferocious than expected.
“Before work, I was about to go out twice for walks,” Silva said. “Then I looked at the radar.”
The heavy rains were wrung out along a narrow corridor cutting through the city, and they generated widespread traffic disruptions during the afternoon.
The weather service said that 1.23 inches of rain had been measured at Philadelphia International Airport, just between noon and 1 p.m. More than 2 inches fell upon parts of Bucks County.
Road flooding was widespread in Philly, Bucks County, and South Jersey.
Among the highways affected were the Schuylkill Expressway in the Point Breeze area; I-95 in Eastwick, at the Platt Bridge, and in the Croydon, Bucks County, area, where the warning was extended until 6:15 p.m.; and Route 130 in Burlington County.
The rains were getting juice from a rich pulse of moisture from the South, said Mike Gorse, a meteorologist at the weather service’s Mount Holly office.
What’s more, these types of threats may be a “repeated thing” later in the week, he added, echoing Silva’s comment, with showers in the forecast again for Thursday night and Friday as the region is stuck in another sultry air mass.
The recent rains represent quite a reversal of fortune for the region and the entire state of New Jersey.
After 16 consecutive months of below-normal precipitation in Philly, officially close to 10 inches of rain has been measured since July 1, and recent rains have set off rashes of flood warnings, including on Sunday.
July’s total, 7.03 inches, was 2.65 inches above normal.
Still, water levels along the Schuylkill in Norristown and the Delaware River at Trenton have remained relatively low, the result of all that antecedent dryness.
However, flashier creeks, such as the Neshaminy, in Bucks County, are prone to slosh over in downpours, said Sarah Johnson, the weather service’s warning coordination meteorologist in Mount Holly.
While Chester County and all of New Jersey remain under drought warnings, the recent turn to wetness may have some staying power, she said.
According to the weather service’s Middle Atlantic River Forecast Center, which relies on networks of observations in each county, rainfall in all 21 counties in New Jersey has been well above normal in the 60-day period that ended on Tuesday.
On the Pennsylvania side, rainfall was at or above normal in Philly and its neighboring counties — including Chester County, where the 9.17-inch total was 113% of normal.
The federal Climate Prediction Center’s longer-term outlooks see chances favoring above-normal precipitation from next Tuesday through Aug. 19.
Just hold the downpours.
