WEATHER BLOG : Unstable

As many eyes along the East Coast remain focused on "Arthur" Thursday, (especially in the Southeast), there will be a few showers and thunderstorms in the Mid-Atlantic states and the Northeast which may result in flash flooding.

This "get-away day" prior to the Fourth of July weekend could be impacted especially for those who are headed to their holiday destinations Thursday afternoon and into the evening.

Wednesday's heat and humidity was quite oppressive, as well advertised. Those thunderstorms were quite potent, causing numerous cloud-to-ground lightning strikes, some downed tree limbs and also pockets of major flooding.

It was a key reason why Flash Flood Watches have been issued for Thursday afternoon and into the night in much of eastern Pennsylvania, the northern two-thirds of New Jersey and in southeastern New York.

The model guidance the National Weather Service uses to determine whether or not flash flooding will occur reveals that it "won't take very much rain" (based on what happened Wednesday) for this forecast to verify a "slight risk area" for severe thunderstorms issued by the Storm Prediction Center for a zone east of the Appalachians.

It runs from western Maine down to central Virginia and all of the big cities located near I-95 are included in this slight risk area, so we must also consider the possibility that any thunderstorm Thursday may cause damaging wind gusts as well as flooding.