You can kiss those dry, sunny days goodbye, at least for the weekend. The rain should start later today and intensify tomorrow. By the time it's all over we may have erased the majority of our precipitation deficit for the year. The heavy rain - as much as 2.5 inches near Baltimore - could also cause some flash flooding in some locations, so be aware.

And don't drive through flooded sections of roadway. It takes less than 2 feet of moving water to float your vehicle, and off you go to meet your maker in your new SUV. Two-thirds of flooding deaths occur when motorists try to drive through flooded roads.

So, here's the forecast from Sterling. And here are the current hazardous weather advisories.

Rain was already moving across the southern part of the region late this morning. It was expected to crank up in our area later today. Here's the radar loop. We're talking about an onshore flow of Atlantic moisture to start. That runs up against the mountains and drops lots of moisture to our west. Then, tomorrow, the weather systems shift to the east and we're affected by a wet warm front and a following cold front, both of which will bring us even more intense rainfall. Toss in a chance for severe thunderstorms and the weekend begins to look pretty interesting.

And we can use it all. A good, soaking rain will start to refill our stream beds and groundwater. And it will go a long way toward erasing the precipitation deficit, which looks like this:

January:  Normal: 3.47 inches  Actual: 3.48

February: Normal: 3.02 inches Actual: 2.64

March: Normal: 3.93 inches      Actual: 0.18

April: Normal*: 1.97 inches       Actual*: 1.63

Deficit*:  4.46 inches

* Through Thursday