Wow....a "gully washer", "frog strangler", "rainin' cats & dogs", "raining pitchforks & hammer handles", "cow urinating on a flat rock"....call it what you want but torrential rain poured down on much of the First Coast Wed. night-Thu. A weak cool front slowly sinking southward is the primary culprit as rain & storms develop near the front then "train" east/northeast over the same areas. One particularly hard hit area was the south & east side of Jacksonville/Duval Co. particularly from near Arlington south to Mandarin where there were numerous reports of 3-6" of rain since midnight Thu. The extreme was near Regency & Arlington south to Beach Blvd. to near & just north of Butler Blvd. where amounts were 10"+ with one report of 17" in Arlington since 9pm Wed.! Our own parking lot at CBS47/FOX30 was flooded & one car floated into a nearby canal where 2 teenagers had to swim to safety as their car sank. I personally spoke with the men live on the air in the 5:30 newscast. See the story -- click
here.
The First Alert Doppler image below shows where 2 large areas of heavy rain merged between 4 & 4:30pm Thu. causing extreme rainfall rates of 3"+/hr. resulting in some of the most serious flooding of the day. Photos are from Allison, Mandarin...Lelia Cirspen, Sandalwood (S'side, Jax)...Chuck Hisey, Fleming Island...& Naida, S'side, Jax.
Below the photos you'll see some of the rainfall reports for Thu. (with the 17" on Debutante Dr. in Arlinton since 9pm Wed.). Just about equally stunning is the 14"+ on the Southside the last couple of weeks which adds up to about a quarter of our annual rainfall (52.3")!
Where the heavy rain sets up for Fri.-Sat. has everything to do with where the front stalls. At the moment, it looks like the slow-moving front will stall somewhere close to or even a little south of I-4. If true, the heaviest rains would focus south & west of Jax & even -- by Fri. night -- south & west of most of the viewing area. However, the front will start to creep back north later Sat.-Sun. bringing scattered showers & storms with the potential for heavy rain back into NE Fl./SE Ga. Very warm, muggy conditions otherwise with highs in the mid to upper 80s under partly cloudy skies outside any showers or storms. An onshore component (E/SE) to the wind will keep temps. a little lower at the beaches until next week when south to southwest winds take over. A weak -- but still significant -- upper low will be near the area
Mon.-Wed. of next week & could cause more heavy rain.
