Harvey to unload drenching rain in Ohio Valley, northeastern US during Labor Day weekend
As a major snowstorm makes its way through the country, Accuweather's own storm chaser Reed Timmer shows us just how cold it was in Roanoke, Virginia on Jan. 13.
Harvey is on the move and will roll across the Ohio Valley, before racing across the mid-Atlantic states with rain during part of the Labor Day weekend.
While Harvey is not expected to bring widespread flooding, or flooding anywhere close to the disaster in Texas, enough rain is likely to fall to bring urban and isolated flash flooding hundreds of miles north of the Gulf of Mexico coast.
"Harvey will accelerate northeastward and then eastward across the interior U.S. into this weekend," according to AccuWeather Hurricane Expert Dan Kottlowski.
This increase in forward speed will prevent Harvey from repeating the feet of rain which has fallen near the Gulf coast.
Harvey will transition to a tropical rainstorm.
"Since Harvey will remain an efficient producer of rain for several more days, a general 2-4 inches is likely to fall near and just north of its path over the Ohio Valley," Kottlowski said.
Some places will get a little more. The heaviest rain into Friday is likely to track within 100 miles or so of the lower Mississippi and Ohio rivers.
The rain associated with Harvey will pass well south of St. Louis, Chicago and Detroit.
Southeast of the track of the center of the storm, locally severe thunderstorms are possible with strong wind gusts and flash flooding.
During Saturday into Sunday, Harvey will begin to blend with a non-tropical storm and rainfall may become more spread out as it reaches the Northeast.
A general 1-2 inches of rain is likely from the northern parts of Pennsylvania and New Jersey to Maine. Locally, 2-4 inches of rain may fall from Virginia and West Virginia to southern Pennsylvania and Maryland, especially in the mountains.
If Harvey and the non-tropical storm merge together fast enough, localized rainfall of 2-4 inches may fall from eastern New York state to Maine.
In addition to the risk of isolated urban and flash flooding, fans heading to high school and college football games on Friday and Saturday should check their local forecast and dress accordingly. The use of umbrellas may not be allowed in some stadiums.
The wet conditions on the road may slow highway travel, especially for those heading out for a getaway during the Labor Day weekend.
There is some good news, in that it will not rain the entire weekend. Rain will depart the Ohio Valley from west to east on Saturday. The same is true for much of the mid-Atlantic on Sunday. Rain is not likely to get to much of New England until Saturday night and should depart much of the area on Sunday night.
Much of the Ohio Valley and Northeast will be free of rain on Labor Day. However, showers are forecast to dip southward across the Great Lakes.
Meanwhile, the system that failed to evolve into Tropical Storm Irma along the Atlantic coast on Tuesday will still pack gusty winds and rough conditions at sea this week. Surf conditions will improve into Friday in the Northeast.
Another system, thousands of miles away over the Atlantic, has grabbed Irma's namesake. This new system is forecast to strengthen to a hurricane and may approach the northeastern Caribbean islands during the middle of next week. Steering winds may bring it close to the U.S. before the middle of the month.
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