The Broad Street Run may be in a race against rains, but the worst of them might hold off
It will be a race as rains arrive sometime Sunday morning. "It's a squeeze play," says a meteorologist.
Heavy rains are all but a certainty in the Philly region Sunday, and while the more than 36,000 runners pounding Broad Street during the nation’s largest 10-mile race may avoid the downpours, forecasters say this might not be a completely dry run.
“It’s a squeeze play,” said Dave Dombek, a senior meteorologist with AccuWeather Inc. On a rainy Friday, the precise timing of the arrival of steady rains on Sunday remained uncertain.
But the trend-breaking storms already were having an effect on the three-day Penn Relays, one of the nation’s premier track-and-field events, and would continue to do so through Saturday.
» READ MORE: Rain or shine, here's what to know about the Broad Street Run
As for whether the next round of significant rains races to Philly in time for the 8 a.m. Broad Street Run start time, “It’s going to be very close,” said Patrick O’Hara, meteorologist with the National Weather Service Office in Mount Holly, adding that the agency has been briefing the city’s Emergency Management Office.
The race traditionally is held on the first Sunday in May; however, it so happens it was moved up a week this year because the Phillies are hosting the Boston Red Sox May 7 in a day game. We hesitate to add that the long-term outlook for next weekend has a considerably drier look.
In any event, both the Broad Street Run and the Penn Relays, which were expected to draw a total of 100,000 spectators over its three-day run that began Thursday, are rain-or-shine events.
» READ MORE: A guide to this year's soggy Penn Relays
On the bright side — and given the forecast, almost anything would qualify — computer models typically have a hard time nailing arrival times of precipitation; thus, it’s possible that the rain holds off until Sunday afternoon. “We have that going for us,” said O’Hara.
Another positive for the runners: Although they will pick up later, during the race winds are expected to be light, off the Delaware River.
The rains also should mean a break for allergy sufferers, as the wetness is likely to dampen the flights of the tree and grass pollen.
Otherwise, for those of you visiting the city this weekend, be advised that we haven’t had this kind of rain in some time. Our apologies.
This almost certainly is going to be the wettest weekend of the year to date, and precipitation since March 1 was about half of normal in Philly through Thursday. In the U.S. Drought Monitor weekly update posted Thursday, just about all of Chester County and parts of Delaware and Bucks Counties were in “moderate drought.”
Dombek said that designation almost certainly will change with next Thursday’s update.
Rains got underway Friday morning as a storm approached the Delmarva Peninsula. The forecast totals, on the order of 1 to 1.5 inches, could exceed the entire amount that fell during the first three weeks of April.
Similar amounts are expected from the second storm, with rains to arrive sometime Sunday morning, even if not at race time.
The long-range outlooks are seeing a continuation of a pattern that snow lovers would have welcomed back in January, with below-normal temperatures and a frisky atmosphere, Dombek said.
» READ MORE: The region has experienced quite a dry spell
Temperatures won’t get out of the 60s during the weekend, and perhaps not make it to 60 degrees Monday and Tuesday.
But one last bright note: Even though as much as 3 inches of rain could fall during the weekend, it has been so dry and the streams so low that no flood watches have been posted. And despite onshore winds, no major coastal flooding is expected, since we are between the tide-tugging new and full moons.