PLYMOUTH - Umbrellas were handy. Sandbags? Not so much.
Yesterday's late-winter storm provided a deluge through most of the day, but not the drenching that some had predicted.
"It doesn't seem to be the kind of rain we were expecting," said Taunton's emergency management director, Richard E. Ferreira.
Forecasters had predicted that some areas of Eastern Massachusetts could get as much as 5 inches of rain yesterday, but by midday yesterday it was evident that the precipitation was waning.
"It's been light on the rain side," said Plymouth's emergency management director, Aaron Wallace, who was monitoring the town's usual trouble spots.
"We've got nothing out of the ordinary," he said. "It seems to be lighter than we thought it would be."
In Plymouth, sheets of rain whipped the streets late yesterday morning, but by midafternoon, the rain was only drizzle.
"It wasn't that bad. They made it sound like people's basements are going to get flooded and we need to sandbag our windows," said Jodie Reynolds, who browsed through Brennan's Smoke Shop in downtown Plymouth.
As of 9 p.m., forecasters said they expected the area had seen most of whatever rain it would get. About 2 to 3 1/2 inches of rain had fallen across the region, according to the National Weather Service in Taunton, with Southeastern Massachusetts and Rhode Island getting the most.
Still, the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency opened its state emergency operations center at noon yesterday, "in case the worst happens," spokesman Peter W. Judge said.
The two-phase storm began Friday night, dropping between a half-inch and 1 1/2 inches of rain on Eastern Massachusetts. The region experienced a lull yesterday morning, before a second wave of rain arrived at about 2 p.m., bringing high winds with it.
"It is a pretty intense storm," Kevin Cadima, a meteorologist with the Weather Service, said, noting that wind gusts were expected to top 50 miles per hour last night.
Still, the relatively paltry precipitation was a relief for many who have experienced flooding.
"It's raining hard like they said it would, but the brook is still at a low level, so I'm not too concerned," said Fatima Bettencourt, who owns a bakery in downtown Peabody that is susceptible to flooding during bad storms.
With the state already saturated from a wet February, too much rain would have been a disaster. A record 7.9 inches of precipitation fell last month, 3.3 inches more than average.
"It's spring. It's supposed to rain," said Joani Gwilliam with a shrug. Gwilliam works at Finders Keepers Quality Consignments on Main Street.
Still, she was relieved that the torrential rains that were forecast for Plymouth hadn't come, because her house sprung a leak during the previous storm. The leak did not reappear yesterday, she said.
Planes in and out of Logan International Airport were mostly on time, though some travelers experienced delays to New York and Washington, D.C., because Kennedy and Dulles International airports experienced ground stoppages, said Lisa Langone, Massachusetts Port Authority spokeswoman.
"Otherwise, it has been a normal day," she said.
The emergency management agency's field offices and online operations center will continue to be in contact with communities at risk for flooding, Judge said. Some small streams might flood immediately, but larger rivers might not fully rise until today or tomorrow.
In Lowell, Mayor Edward C. Caulfield said authorities were keeping a close eye on the Merrimack River, which was more than a foot below its flood stage.
"Last year, it rose dramatically in just a few hours," he said. "We're going to do everything we can to help those in low-lying areas."
DeLuzuriaga can be reached at deluzuriaga@globe.com; Badkhen at abadkhen@globe.com.
