VA State Weather Briefing 5/26/26

Added: 2026-05-27

[00:00:05]Good morning everyone. We're going to get started here. My name is Katie Carter. I'm the emergency response meteorologist with the National Weather Service. And finally after extreme drought conditions have been spreading across the Commonwealth, we've had a period of decent rainfall and that unsettled pattern is going to continue through the middle of the week and really into Thursday and then we will see some drying conditions. So the story in the headlines is going to be continued rain chances and even a bit of a flood potential. So let's talk about what we have going on.

[00:00:40]So the weather pattern here is really due to kind of a quasi stationary front that really just keeps meandering through the area. It's parked right over top of the Commonwealth right now, kind of just hanging out there bringing that continued moisture through Thursday of this week. Now, due to the rainfall that we did have over the last few days but yesterday in particular some really heavy downpours for a few locations, that is going to play into our heavy rainfall potential and I should say actually the flooding potential as we get into today and tomorrow just because now all of a sudden the ground went from very dry to in some instances very very wet. So today, tomorrow and Wednesday keeping with that wet pattern. Things do dry out for Friday and Saturday and really into the next weekend. So we have a few more days to get through in terms of the rainfall. So I want to kind of take a step back to give us a context of what we had. Now unfortunately, I really wanted to show you the 72-hour radar estimated rainfall. Unfortunately, it didn't update in time for me to include the 72-hour really same with the 48-hour. It just was going through yesterday. So, I settled on 24 hours because this still is a really great representation of what we saw yesterday. Now, this is ending at 8:00 this morning. So, you can really see where that heavy band of rainfall set up here in central and eastern Virginia. So, you see the yellows, oranges, and even red stretching from south side Richmond through a lot of Chesterfield County, back to Amelia, through Nottoway, Lunenburg, southern Prince Edward County, back to Charlotte, and then especially east of I-95. We have you know, eastern Henrico, Prince George, and Charles City, New Kent, King William, King and Queen, over to Gloucester, and even the the yellows, that's 1 and 1/2 to 2 inches of rainfall over portions of the eastern shore as well. So, that stripe is really where we saw the uh thunderstorms and just heavy rain training. When we say training, it's just means it's it's literally like a train. A train is just going over continuously being fed that train of moisture. And when that set up, it really caused uh some heavy rainfall and some flash flooding instances as well. We saw some news reports of stranded vehicles in Richmond and Tri-Cities area. So, it caused some issues for sure.

[00:03:23]So, giving that context to what happened yesterday and knowing that the ground in some areas is already primed, the uh we have an excessive rainfall outlook, a slight risk, that's the area shaded in yellow for areas generally south of 64 and west of I-95. Now, part of this area did see some of the heavy rainfall yesterday, but luckily, the good news is the area that was hardest hit yesterday in terms of rainfall is under the marginal risk. So, still has a risk of seeing some isolated flash flooding, but at least they're not in that slight risk. However, that means that sort of a different area is going to be targeted today and with the rainfall that we're expecting today, we could be seeing some isolated flooding instances in um a good part of the Commonwealth, but that best chance is really south of 64 and west of 95.

[00:04:15]So, um given the widespread drought conditions that we have been seeing, if you were outside of the area that saw the really heavy rainfall yesterday, it's not um we're not expecting to see widespread flooding, but more of like an isolated situation. You might have uh you know, one area seeing some issues briefly before the rain finds a either drainage or it can soak into the ground.

[00:04:41]And uh I'll show you the rainfall amounts of what we're expecting, but the models are not great on picking up exactly where these pockets of heavy rainfall and thunderstorms may may be.

[00:04:53]So, this is kind of giving us a general overview about what we can expect statewide today. And notice that the least amount of rainfall is in northern Virginia. But, little to no rain expected up here. I I hesitate to say no rain because still you know, a few hundredths up to a tenth of an inch is of course still rain, but most of it is going to be a little bit further south than that. So, you see a lot of areas a quarter up to a half an inch. Now, I will preface this by saying I think this is a good rule of thumb to expect about a quarter of an inch up to a half an inch, maybe a little bit more than that.

[00:05:29]However, isolated instances of higher amounts are going to be possible where these heavier showers and potential thunderstorms set up this afternoon. So, kind of the situation yesterday where we saw the training uh rainfall and just continued downpours, we're looking at something similar today. However, it's so hard to pinpoint exactly where that's going to set up. So, definitely heavier amounts are going to be possible.

[00:05:56]Now, one thing that we look at to give us a sense of where some of this flooding might be is kind of, you know, looking back in time to how much rainfall we have had, how is the ground primed, what does the drainage situation look like if we're in an urban area where there's a lot of concrete and, you know, poor drainage potentially, and how much rainfall we're expecting. One tool that we really like to look at is the 1-hour flash flood guidance. Now, I know a lot of folks on this call know what it is, but given the fact that it's been a while since we've been in our, you know, spring flood season, and we started off with a drought, I think it's a good refresher to just go over what this product is. So, again, it's kind of taking over previous conditions and what we are anticipating. It shows just a general indication of how much rain it would take over just 1 hour to have small creeks and streams overflow their banks or see some localized flash flooding in urban areas. I noticed the area yesterday that saw that heavy rainfall, you know, South Richmond and areas east, it's a lot lower of a threshold. So, anywhere from 3/4 of an inch up to an inch in the area of yellow, and even some of those darker, more, maybe marigold colors, a half inch up to 3/4 of an inch. It's very easy to get these rainfall amounts over just 1 hour if we do have heavy thunderstorms that can just dump a lot of rain like we saw yesterday. So, this is still an area to watch just given the flash flood guidance. It's going to take less rain over just 1 hour to cause some, um, you know, isolated flooding conditions. And then I would be remiss if I uh to say uh all of the areas in Shenandoah also have pretty low flash flood guidance as well. We're talking Frederick County, Shenandoah, um specifically Rockingham County. You'll If you look closely, you can see a few reds in there. The flash flood guidance there is about a quarter of an inch up to a half inch in a few locations. So, in the Shenandoah, we could also be seeing some flooding if we see heavy rainfall. But, also keep in mind that this is where less rainfall is expected today. And also DC area and um uh Fairfax, portions of Loudoun County, and Prince William also in that lower threshold for our flash flood guidance.

[00:08:26]So, just a few areas across the state to keep in mind.

[00:08:30]And this is our 3-day excessive rainfall outlook. So, we know that today we have a slight risk for excessive rainfall.

[00:08:38]Looking ahead to tomorrow, not quite as I I should say widespread um slight risk.

[00:08:45]We're only in that marginal category, but almost the entire state is under a marginal risk for excessive rainfall tomorrow. So, this means that isolated flash flooding is going to be possible, not a scattered event. And then by Thursday, there is still some rain in the forecast. However, we're not expecting heavy rainfall that leads to flooding.

[00:09:05]So, this here is uh something that you can reference yourself if you're looking for a more general uh look at idea of timing. So, you can see today and tomorrow really high chances for precipitation from I would say noon to about 6:00 p.m.

[00:09:21]today and lingering in even into the later evening hours. And then again tomorrow afternoon, really high chance for rain throughout the afternoon and evening hours. A lot less of a chance for rain on Thursday, but still some lingering showers going to be around.

[00:09:35]And then we finally start to dry things out Friday through the weekend. Now, that was all focused on heavier rainfall. Another component when we're talking about thunderstorms is is there a risk for severe storms? So, although there is a risk for flooding today with some thunderstorms, the severe risk is really limited. We don't have the dynamics for strong winds, hail, tornadoes, anything like that. Any thunderstorms that we see today are going to be heavy rain makers. Pretty similar tomorrow, although we do have a marginal risk across a large part portion of the state for severe storms.

[00:10:10]So, on top of the isolated chance for flash flooding, we also will bring some gusty winds potentially into the mix with any thunderstorms that we see tomorrow. I'm not looking at a widespread severe weather event. We're not looking at the threat for tornadoes or anything like that. It's that tomorrow's rain and storm chance could just bring some isolated damage with wind gusts up to 60 mph. And then Thursday, because the threat is really just so limited, there is a chance for just general thunderstorms, you know, a few rumbles of thunder, but that is mainly limited to our southern locations near our North Carolina border.

[00:10:45]>> [snorts] >> Breaking down tomorrow's severe weather threat, as I mentioned, it's really going to be flooding and wind gusts. So, we have a moderate conferen- confidence, excuse me, moderate confidence in storm coverage and the timing of it. The timing tomorrow for the storms going to be from roughly 3:00 to 10:00 p.m. So, we get the heating of the day going in the mid-afternoon, and then carry that a little bit after sunset. And storms tomorrow are going to be moving east-southeast from about 30 to 35 mph.

[00:11:16]Not a widespread event, but certainly something to keep in mind.

[00:11:19]Accumulated rainfall when we're talking about the first half of our forecast period, so that's today through Friday morning, is certainly the wetter of the two periods. So, we are um definitely in a good spot when it comes to our drought monitor. Remember that US Drought Monitor updates come out on Thursdays. So, unfortunately, I don't have that update for you, but just hearing a few folks saying obviously some beneficial rain has come in recent days. So, hopefully we can put a pretty decent dent in our extreme drought that we have here across the Commonwealth because it was really getting to be um difficult and if it would have continued that drought, we would have been potentially talking about water restrictions and um already hearing things about uh you know, ag being impacted as a result. So, thankfully we did get some rain. And then the second half of our forecast period uh talking about drying out Saturday through even Tuesday morning, very limited rainfall in that second half uh forecast.

[00:12:26]Temperature-wise, we are about on track for highs normal this time of the year.

[00:12:33]In Richmond, the average high um right around Memorial Day is about 80° and that's about where we'll be today give or take a few degrees on either side of that. We'll be a little bit warmer than that for both tomorrow and Thursday.

[00:12:46]Just about average on Friday and then maybe a little bit cooler for the weekend, but I I kind of hesitate to say cooler because 70s is definitely still warm and nice and it'll actually be dry for the weekend. So, that is um good news because you know, we needed that rain, but unfortunately it did come for the long holiday weekend.

[00:13:06]Our last slide that I'll leave you with before any questions that you might have out there is just sort of that um more mid-range outlook, temperature outlook, 8 to 14 day. That's the first week of June is kind of smack dab in the middle.

[00:13:20]So, not above average, not below average, should be right about on target temperature-wise. And then our precipitation outlook for that same period is also riding that line between normal, maybe a little bit below normal looking ahead. So, that's what I have for you given that we didn't have our briefing yesterday due to the holiday.

[00:13:40]Um, you will have another email update come Thursday, but in the meantime, if you have any questions, don't hesitate to reach out, and thanks everyone for joining. Have a great day.