Butler County residents only have to look up in the sky to see the remains of a tropical depression, which meteorologists expect to create an “efficient storm.”

Mike Kennedy, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Pittsburgh, said Tropical Depression Fred, which battered the Florida panhandle when it made landfall on Monday night, is now affecting Butler County and all of Western Pennsylvania.

Kennedy said models show an average of 3.5 to 4 inches of rain locally by Wednesday evening.

The drips and drabs of rain on Tuesday, Kennedy said, were expected to turn to significant rainfall in the early morning hours on Wednesday.

“The brunt of the rain will be falling around daybreak to early afternoon,” he said.

Because the ground is saturated from the sporadic rain Monday and Tuesday, flooding is likely, Kennedy said.

“On (Wednesday) morning, the rain will be widespread, and that's going to create a problem because we are going to see runoff overflow the basins,” he said. “We're going to see flooding.”

After tapering off in the afternoon, Fred will weaken as it moves northeast, Kennedy said.

A tropical depression contains winds of less than 39 miles per hour.