Remember When the Sun Shone This Morning? Heavy Wind, and Some More Rain on the Way

UPDATED (7:07 p.m.)—It started off as a warm, sunny day in downtown Pikesville. But at about 10:30 a.m., the clouds took over, and it's been raining gently ever since.

Earlier today, the National Weather Service expected the weather in our area to get worse, as forecasters called for heavy rain and damaging gusts. While gusts are possible, the rain won't be heavy tonight after all.

Rather, "any rainfall will be no more than a couple hundredths of an inch," the NWS Short Term Forecast, updated at 6:28 p.m., states. "Wind gusts may reach 15-25 mph at times."

The NWS issued a Hazardous Weather Outlook for Pikesville and surrounding areas because rain showers with west winds at about 11 mph and gusts up to 34 mph were expected this afternoon and before 10 p.m.

So far today, the following gusts were measured in Maryland, according to Steve Prinzivalli, meteorologist at Weather Bug, based in Germantown:

60 mph—Gaithersburg

58 mph—Germantown

51 mph—Clarksburg

50 mph—Silver Spring

49 mph—Frederick

48 mph—Catonsville

48 mph—Baltimore

47 mph—Laurel

45 mph—Gwynn Oak

44 mph—Ijamsville

43 mph—Glen Burnie

41 mph—Annapolis

41 mph—Stafford

41 mph—Leesburg

The Maryland State Highway Administration urges cautious driving. Log on to the following for live travel conditions: http://www.chart.state.md.us/

BGE said this afternoon that there were already weather-related power outages occuring with high wind and heavy rainfall in its Central Maryland service area.

High wind gusts, combined with wet conditions and saturated ground, could cause trees and tree limbs that are already weakened to fall onto power lines, a BGE news release stated.

Customers can stay informed on power outages through www.bge.com, Twitter, Facebook and Flickr.

“On the heels of last weekend’s storm, during which BGE restored electric service to more than 95,000 customers, we are preparing for yet another potentially damaging storm and are already mobilizing field crews and other employees to position us to respond to electric service interruptions as safely and as quickly as possible,” A. Christopher Burton, senior vice president of gas and electric operations and planning for BGE, said in a news release this afternoon.