Philly got more rain in one hour than in the previous two months. Plus: Snowflakes are possible Friday.
It was the most rain in a calendar day since Aug. 17-18. Is a Thanksgiving weekend storm on the horizon?
Though you might well have slept through it, not only did it rain Wednesday night, but officially more rain fell in Philly between 11 p.m. and midnight than in the previous 64 days — combined.
And while it didn’t close schools or set off supermarket stampedes, these days rain qualifies as a bona fide weather event. Light rain and chilly winds persisted into Thursday afternoon, a remembrance of Novembers past.
Officially, 0.88 inches of rain was reported at Philadelphia International Airport through 1 p.m. Thursday — 0.52 of that during a thunderstorm in the final hour of Wednesday. It was the most measured on any calendar day in over three months, and after the first rainless October in records dating to 1872, the November total nudged to 1.25 inches.
Still, the drought is not over.
In its weekly update Thursday, the U.S. Drought Monitor had the immediate Philly area and all of South Jersey in “extreme drought” conditions, with the rest of the region in “severe drought.”
More showers are possible Friday, with wet snowflakes possibly added to the mix. December-like temperatures and northwest winds gusting to 25 mph will generate wind chills (you remember those?) making it feel like it’s in the mid- to upper 20s Friday morning.
Meanwhile, a winter-storm warning was in effect for the Poconos starting at 4 p.m. Thursday, with up to 18 inches of snow possible in the highest elevations.
No precipitation is expected around here on the weekend, when as many as 30,000 participate in the annual Philadelphia Marathon events, but brisk breezes are expected to drive wind chills into the mid-30s during race times both mornings.
» READ MORE: Running won’t be a breeze for Philly marathon racers, with strong winds expected both days
Meteorologists say that a major transition is underway.
“It’s going to be quite a pattern change,” said Alex Staarmann, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Mount Holly. “We’re moving into a much colder and much stormier pattern for the East for the next couple of weeks.
“We’ll probably get at least some additional rain.”
He said that another significant storm could affect the region on Thanksgiving weekend.
For the first time in a long time, the two-week outlook posted Wednesday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Climate Prediction Center favors below-normal temperatures for Philadelphia and most of the nation. It also has the odds tilted toward above-normal precipitation in the Philly region.
Still, it will take some serious raining to wipe out the precipitation deficits. Through Tuesday, rainfall in the last 90 days in Philadelphia was about 7% of normal, according to NOAA’s Middle Atlantic River Forecast Center.
During previous serious droughts, notably the ones spanning 1964-65 and 1980-81, nature took its good old time refilling the reservoirs and recharging the groundwater.