Heavy Rain, Flash Floods for Sunday – ‘It’s Gonna Be a Mess’
💧 The entire Seacoast is under a Flash Flood Watch until late Sunday night
💧 Heavy rain will fall "hard and fast", with flooding in poor drainage areas
💧 Two Tornado Warnings were issued Sunday morning for western Rockingham County
The Seacoast is under the threat of heavy rain, which could lead to flash flooding on Sunday.
Rain with embedded thunderstorms will develop and increase in intensity as the day goes on. The already saturated group will not be able to absorb much rainfall, which increases the threat for flooding, according to the National Weather Service in Gray, Maine.
A Flash Flood Watch is in effect for the entire Seacoast region until late Sunday. "It's gonna be a mess out there today," meteorologist Andy Tohl at the National Weather Service in Gray, Maine, told Seacoast Current.
There's also a Tornado Watch in effect until 3 p.m. in all of Rockingham and Strafford counties, along with Belknap, Carroll, Cheshie, Grafton, Hillsborough, Merrrimack, and Sullivan counties in New Hampshire, and York and Cumberland counties in Maine.
The Seacoast is under the gun for potential flash flooding just as much as the harder hit areas to the west, according to Tohl.
"Even though the Seacoast hasn't gotten as much rain as some of the mountain areas, there's potential for a couple of inches of rain plus three to four inches locally in some of the heavier downpours," Tohl said. "It's going to come down hard and fast, and we could still see some flash flooding."
Tohl was especially concerned about urban areas where it's not going to run off or be absorbed at all. Small streams could turn into dangerous rivers with flood waters spreading away from their banks, which could spill onto roadways.
Two Tornado Warnings were issued Sunday morning for western Rockingham County on the Manchester border along Route 101, which expired at 9 a.m. There was also a warning for an area near Pelham moving north that also expired.
Contact reporter Dan Alexander at Dan.Alexander@townsquaremedia.com or via Twitter @DanAlexanderNH