Rain pounds NC as storm moves up the East Coast

WILMINGTON, N.C. (AP) — Driving rain from a storm system moving up the East Coast soaked parts of North Carolina today, caused soggy morning commutes in the Northeast and prompted worries of flooding as far north as Maine.

Tornado watches were issued from North Carolina to New Jersey.

In North Carolina, the nearly 21 inches collected in Wilmington since rain started falling Sunday topped Hurricane Floyd’s five-day mark of 19 inches set in 1999, the National Weather Service said.

There were no immediate reports of injuries Thursday.

Farther north, parts of eastern Virginia were under flash flood warnings. The National Weather Service also issued a tornado watch for 33 eastern Virginia counties and 21 cities, including Richmond, Williamsburg, Arlington and the Hampton Roads area.

Flash flood watches were also in effect for areas in Maryland, West Virginia and Washington, D.C.

In the Northeast, where abnormally dry weather had recently threatened brush fires and forced some states to issue drought warnings, the storms brought promise of relief even as authorities cautioned about possible flooding later today in a swath from Pennsylvania and New Jersey to Maine.

Rain made for a messy morning commute but the heaviest of the storms had not reached Philadelphia and New York by the morning rush hour.

In southeastern North Carolina, about 9 inches of rain fell at the Sunny Point military terminal in Brunswick County between midnight and 6 a.m. Thursday, the National Weather Service in Wilmington reported. Rain in the area was falling in bursts of between 1.5 inches to 3 inches per hour around daybreak, weather service meteorologist Michael Ross said.