Flash-flood watch issued

Much of the Shenandoah Valley and central Virginia region is under a flash-flood watch beginning this morning and extending into the afternoon as a result of Tropical Storm Hanna.
Both the National Weather Service and AccuWeather.com are calling for rainfall totals overnight of a half-inch or less, and about an inch during the day today.
Earlier National Weather Service forecasts had Waynesboro receiving up to five inches of rain, but it issued a revised forecast as of 8 p.m. Friday. It says winds should be between 11 and 30 mph. Its short-term forecast called for one-tenth of an inch of rain in the region overnight.
Bob Smerbeck, senior meteorologist with AccuWeather.com, said that unless Hanna shifts to the west, he expected Waynesboro to get up to a half-inch of rain overnight, and up to an inch of additional rain today, with winds not exceeding 20 mph, except along the ridgetops.
Hanna, as of 5 p.m. Friday, was located 160 miles south-southeast of Charleston, S.C., flirting between tropical storm and Category 1 hurricane status with peak winds of 70 mph.
Smerbeck expected the storm to make landfall just after midnight Saturday along the North Carolina-South Carolina border. The storm, he said, is expected to move across eastern North Carolina and, by this evening, leave the Delaware Bay area and “rocket into southern New England.”
The moist, tropical flow coming from Hanna caused rain to fall Friday afternoon from southeastern Virginia into parts of south-central Virginia.
A moderate or heavy rain in the region, Smerbeck said, could cool temperatures today to the lower 60s.
The heavier rains in Virginia are expected to be in the Richmond area, working up the Interstate 95 corridor, with rains and heavy winds of up to 60 mph expected to pound the state’s coastal areas.
Gov. Timothy Kaine declared a state of emergency Thursday, allowing state agencies to respond to the storm.
Most of Virginia is under a flash-flood watch, and the coastal areas are under a tropical-storm warning.
John Kocet, a senior meteorologist with AccuWeather.com, said the storm “will do some damage, much like winter nor’easters that are even more powerful.”
Hurricane Ike is currently churning in the central Atlantic Ocean as a Category 3 storm, with winds topping 120 mph.
Smerbeck said Ike is “trending farther west” toward Florida and the Gulf of Mexico before it is expected to turn north by early next week. Another, less likely scenario, he said, could push Ike up the Atlantic seaboard as it nears Florida.
A strong high-pressure system to the east of Hanna is acting as a steering mechanism in pushing Ike farther south, Smerbeck said.

Hanna in the Valley
The forecast for Waynesboro from AccuWeather.com:
TODAY: Tropical storm conditions possible. Rain and possibly a thunderstorm before 2 p.m., then a chance of rain. Some of the storms could produce heavy rainfall. Highs in the low 70s. North to north-northeast winds reaching about 20 mph with another half-inch to inch of rain possible.
SUNDAY: With Hanna out of the region, expect partly cloudy conditions with a high of 87.