Is the weather toying with us? Rain timeline Thursday

Do you get the feeling that perhaps there really is a Mother Nature, or even a bunch of gremlins controlling the weather,  and they are having a field day toying with us? Honestly, I have a degree in meteorology and studied the science extensively to know better, but sometimes I do wonder. After our record wettest June, almost every day this first week of July has had rain, and more flooding. While looking at a few model projections for the next cold front, I stubbled across this sequence on the GFS. Tracking the Low from Ohio Thursday morning as passes to our north and opens up (weakens) during the afternoon and evening in northern Pennsylvania. The kink in the isobars shows the cold front on the Eastern Shore of Maryland by 8 PM, so the worst of the storms should be out by then.  But look closer… The image at the bottom is zoomed in on the simulated rainfall, but I swear that thing is smiling as it passes by.

A closer look at the cold front shows the development of storms ahead of it mid afternoon. The primate time for central Maryland will be between 7 and 9 PM, then the main line of rain crosses to the Delmarva. Here is a look at the high resolution NAM/WRF model simulation. Note the bulk of the main energy should stay north of Maryland, with that smiley face dropping through the Poconos.