Days of rain to soak parts of Northeast
As a storm moves slowly in and stalls, it will set up what will end up being days of rain for some locations that can spoil outdoor plans and slow travel, but may also relieve drought and wildfire concerns.
Stormy weather is going to linger for days across much of the Northeast in the first week of May.
As an atmospheric traffic jam sets up across the United States, some areas in the Northeast will have to deal with clouds and rainy episodes for multiple days this week, AccuWeather meteorologists say.
The pattern can derail outdoor plans, delay spring planting and construction projects and create the appearance of a March or late-October weather condition.
Due to cloud cover and moisture, the weather traffic jam will ease areas of drought and should end any wildfire risk for the spring season.
The rain will continue to develop into the middle of this week, focusing on the Northeast and mid-Atlantic coastal areas to the central Appalachians.
This setup will produce rounds of showers and heavier thunderstorms, some of which can be severe with damaging wind gusts, hail and torrential downpours for a portion of the Northeast and mid-Atlantic states.
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How wet the pattern evolves over the upcoming days will depend on the position of a storm forecast to form at the jet stream level of the atmosphere.
The storm is expected to create a plume of moisture that extends across the mid-Atlantic region and into eastern New York and southern New England this week. Many places could stand a reasonable amount of rain, but the timing may foil outdoor plans and too much of a good thing can truncate drought conditions.
Such a setup can release many inches of rain over the course of several days. A broad area where 2-4 inches of rain will exist through the middle of this week. There will be pockets where 6 inches of rain can fall with an AccuWeather Local StormMax™ of 8 inches most likely in southern New England and from the Poconos in northeastern Pennsylvania to the Catskills in southeastern New York.
Streams that have been running low and ponds that have been drying up will fill with water.
While flash flooding is a concern, there will be periods of slick travel on the roads, and some airline delays due to low clouds accompanying the rain at the airports.
There can also be robust thunderstorms at the onset of the pattern or embedded within the rounds of rain, particularly at the start of the week.
Locations from far eastern Ohio into Pennsylvania, western New York and across the mid-Atlantic region, there will be some risk for severe thunderstorms on Monday. Gusty winds, hail and intense downpours can occur within the strongest storms.
The risk for severe storms will shift eastward into eastern Pennsylvania, central New York and northwest New Jersey on Tuesday.
Storms that develop closer to the coast could experience above-normal tides with coastal flooding during the first half of the upcoming week. However, this would be dependent upon the wind direction for some Atlantic barrier island communities or perhaps low-lying areas along the Chesapeake and Delaware bays.
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