2026-07-06 19:34:35 Wet start to rainy Memorial Day weekend in DC area – NEW WTOP Skip to main content

Wet start to rainy Memorial Day weekend in DC area

It was a wet start to what could be a wet Memorial Day weekend. But the sun could make an appearance Monday, as the area observes the holiday. Here’s what you need to know.

A cold front is now pushing into the region.

Friday ended wet and chilly with lows in the lower 50s. Temperatures will remain in the 50s Saturday and Sunday, with showers likely.

According to Storm Team4 meteorologist Chuck Bell, the struggle for Saturday and Sunday will be to get above 60, which is 20 degrees cooler than average.

One bright spot (pun intended): Sunshine will return for Memorial Day and Tuesday. Afternoon highs should return to the mid 70s to near 80, Bell said.



Earlier Friday, a powerful thunderstorm system, deemed “discrete supercells,” moved across the Potomac River, bringing storms, high winds to southern Maryland, including the southern suburbs south of U.S. Route 50 and Interstate 66.

As for the Maryland and Delaware beaches this weekend, there are still high rain chances through Saturday evening with high temperatures in the low 60s, according to Bell.

For Virginia beaches, Bell said there’s a high rain chance for Saturday, but those areas should get more sunshine on Sunday. Temperatures will be near 80 Saturday but stay in the mid- to upper 60s on Sunday.


More Memorial Day coverage:


Forecast

Saturday: Cloudy with lingering showers and unseasonably cool, damp and breezy. Highs: Upper 50s to near 60.

Sunday: Mostly cloudy with a few scattered showers. Still unseasonably cool. Highs: Upper 50s to low 60s.

Monday/Memorial Day: Becoming mostly sunny. Milder and more seasonable. Highs: Low-to-mid 70s.

Radar

This is what happens to all the rats when cities flood

In the wake of Hurricane Ida, the pummeling rain that hit cities up and down the East Coast at the start of September overwhelmed storm drains, poured into subway stations and filled basements like bathtubs. The devastating human toll is well known. Less clear is what happened to the denizens of those cities' subterranean depths: the rats. It's impossible to know how many rats are in a city — probably on the order of millions — or how many were lost during a major storm. Experts agree that where Ida dropped record-setting rainfall, many rats living in storm sewers would surely have been killed by the sudden inundation. In New York City, 3.2 inches (8 centimeters) of rain fell in a single hour on September 1 — about an inch shy of the normal monthly total. Perhaps hundreds of thousands of rats were crushed or drowned in the deluge, Bobby Corrigan, a foremost rat expert and former rodentologist for the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, told Gothamist. Dead rats have been spotted washed up on city beaches.
Read Next Story