Tuesday we're writing about drought. Friday we're writing about a flood watch for much of the central portion of the state. Go figure. Don't get me wrong; we're still short of water. But forecasters say we could get up to 3 inches of rain tonight, with a risk of small-stream and urban flooding before it all goes away on Sunday. That will sure help, unless it's your basement that's wet.

Here's the deal: Warm, moist air from the Gulf and the Atlantic is streaming northward across the Eastern states. It's running up over a stalled cold front and dropping its moisture as drizzle, showers and the occasional thunderstorm. Here's the Northeast radar loop.

This is what's been keeping us damp since Tuesday. Drizzle and fizzle. It hasn't been much of a rain event in terms of total rainfall. A few inches at most in a few spots. But it has been sustained for three days now. It's cool, so there's not much evaporation. And it's slow, so what we are getting is soaking in, and not just running off. And coming after eight weeks with almost no rain at all, it is more than welcome.

Out at BWI, where the numbers are official, we've recorded 1.3 inches since Wednesday. It's the most rain in one stretch that we've seen there since Aug. 20-21 - two months. And still we're way below average for October. In all, the month has delivered 1.7 inches of rain at BWI, well short of the 3.16-inch norm. Here are some more local totals for the last 24 hours. Also check CoCoRaHS totals here.

But there's more rain in the wings. The forecast is calling for another quarter- to a half-inch of rain today, and as much as two inches overnight. Saturday could deliver still more. So, we could still end the month with above-average rainfall. If so, it would be the first time that's happened since April. 

By Sunday it will all have moved off the coast, and high pressure will move in from the north and west, bringing us dry, sunny weather from Sunday through at least Thursday.

Still not enough water for you? Well, these persistent southeast winds and the full moon are combining to produce unusually high tides along the Chesapeake and the tidal Potomac River. That could bring the water over the bulkheads at places like Harborplace, the City Dock in Annapolis and down in Alexandria. Here's how it looked this morning at Baltimore.