Flood watch in effect across Southern New Hampshire

Sep. 6—The weather put a damper on Labor Day plans across Southern New Hampshire, but the rain was much needed.

The National Weather Service issued a flood watch until 5 p.m. Tuesday.

The flood watch is in effect in Concord, Keene, Manchester, Nashua, Portsmouth and Peterborough, among other communities, according to the watch.

"Excessive runoff may result in flooding of rivers, creeks, streams and other low-lying and flood-prone locations," the watch reads. "Flooding may occur in poor drainage and urban areas."

National Weather Service meteorologist Jon Palmer said the Manchester area should get between 1 and 1.5 inches of rain.

"That is a pretty significant amount of rain," he said. "Typically with just a normal system comes through we anticipate about around a half of an inch. That is kind of the average. Once we start hitting one inch and above that is really where we start looking at a significant precipitation event."

New Hampshire was not expected to get as much rain as Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island, where some dramatic flooding was being reported.

"We could see locally over 2 inches in some areas," Palmer said.

In all, Manchester saw 1.67 inches of rain last month when the average is 3.24 inches. Concord saw 3.54 inches when the average is 3.62, Palmer said.

"We definitely need this rain, especially across our southern and coastal areas, which for the most part have been rain deprived," Palmer said.

Most of the rain is going to be in Southern New Hampshire with the highest rain totals being in Cheshire County with up to 2.6 inches falling in Jaffery.

The rain will likely "shave off" some of the drought with some areas in severe drought dropping to a moderate drought and moderate drought dropping to abnormally dry, Palmer said.

"This is going to help us significantly in regard to drought," Palmer said. "It won't wipe out our drought entirely."