A developing coastal storm might make for a rainy White Out game on Saturday at Beaver Stadium.
After a picture-perfect start to the weekend on Friday in central Pennsylvania, with a high of 68 and sunny skies, current forecasts show rain from what is expected to be a tropical rainstorm moving into the State College area throughout the day on Saturday and into the Penn State-Iowa game, which kicks off at 7:30 p.m.
“I would preface this by saying nothing is set in stone regarding the forecast for Saturday,” AccuWeather senior meteorologist Tyler Roys said. “There’s still some chance that it can either improve and be drier than what’s being forecasted or be wetter than what’s being forecasted. A lot of options are still out on the table.”
Rain is currently expected to be on the lighter side in State College, with heavier precipitation south and east of the Seven Mountains, Roys said.
If the storm follows its projected track, a first wave of rain will move in on Saturday morning and afternoon. A break is possible in the afternoon and may linger into game time, but rainfall is expected to return throughout the night.
“At this time we don’t expect extremely heavy rain,” Roys said. “If people have their ponchos for the game, they’ll be fine. Yes, the grass is going to be wet… but it’s not like there’s going to be ponding everywhere, unless the storm does trend to the west and we do get the heavier rainfall.”
The daytime high is expected to be 61 degrees, with temperatures in the mid-to-upper 50s during the game.
Those traveling southeast toward Harrisburg, Lancaster and Reading after the game should expect heavier rain along the way.
“They could encounter some slower travel because of that,” Roys said. “It’s probably going to take a little bit longer to get home because of that.”
Rain might linger into Sunday. The system could briefly reach tropical storm conditions before making landfall on the coast of North Carolina and becoming a tropical rainstorm once again, Roys said.
“Once it does that, it’s going to try to hook to the east back out to the ocean, and it could linger,” Roys said. “So that could lead to some lingering rain from, let’s say, here in State College on east. So those fans who are traveling back to New York City, to New England, to New Jersey, Philadelphia, even down to D.C., there could be some lingering rain. If there’s any flooding that happens Saturday because of the rainfall, it could lead to longer travel times getting home.”
