Thunderstorms, which began late Wednesday and continued through Thursday morning, dropped more than three inches of rainfall in parts of Covington County within a 24-hour period.

Luckily, no damage was reported from anywhere in the county, said Susan Carpenter, county emergency management agency director.

“We had weather watchers within the county report upwards to four inches,” she said. “Official totals at the Andalusia Airport were 2.46 inches; 2.84 inches at the Yellow River and 3.41 inches at the Florala Airport. That’s a lot of rain in a short amount of time.”

The National Weather Service reported Thursday the rain activity will hold off for today but is expected to begin again Saturday with a 20 percent chance of showers in the afternoon; however on Sunday, the chance increases to 70 percent with a possibility of a thunderstorm and winds ranging from 10 to 15 miles per hour.

NWS’s severe weather watch for this weekend reports conditions remain favorable for damaging winds, large hail and isolated tornadoes, and excessive rainfall from some of the heavier showers or thunderstorms will also give away to some flooding in low-lying areas.

“We will continue to monitor our waterways, which right now, are well within their limits,” Carpenter said.

County engineer Darren Capps said the county’s roadways faired better than he anticipated.

“A couple of men who work for us reported their gauges at home read more than four inches of rain,” Capps said. “When you look at those figures and consider, I thought (the roads) would be a lot worse. We had a few washes from the rain and some spots where water covered the roads, but all in all, it wasn’t too bad.”

Capps said road department employees will spend today repairing those washes. “We still got a mess,” he said. “We’re working on it every day, but the rain slows us. You can’t work with mud. Right now, we’re just trying to keep people able to get in and out of their roads.”

Currently, 17 county roads remain closed following December’s weeklong rains. They are: