Coastal Low Drenches Tidewater With Flash Flooding Likely in Southeast Virginia and Northeast North Carolina
Slow-moving rain bands with 1–3 inch per hour rates are expected to trigger scattered flash flooding in urban areas as coastal water levels compound runoff.
Overview
- Weather Prediction Center guidance (MPD 1091) warns of 1–3 inch per hour rainfall and up to 4 inches in six hours through this afternoon along the VA–NC coast, with flash flooding described as likely.
- A compact surface low just offshore of the Outer Banks is drifting north-northwest, focusing convergence along the coastline and tapping increasing instability to drive repeated onshore rain bands.
- An earlier WPC discussion (MPD 1090) highlighted hourly totals potentially reaching 3 inches this morning as the low neared the coast, signaling an escalating flood threat into the day.
- In the Southwest, WPC reports (MPD 1092) note slow-moving storms across southeast Arizona into southwest and central New Mexico with 1.0–1.5 inch per hour rates that could trigger isolated flash flooding near burn scars and dry washes.
- Across Iowa into northwestern Missouri and far northeastern Kansas, developing thunderstorms are producing localized 2 inch per hour rates with a low-end, isolated flash flood risk given dry antecedent soils (MPD 1093).