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High rainfall causes more current which help to keep the eggs suspended in the current rather than sinking to the bottom where they suffocate. In this sense , high rainfall helps survivability.
However....high rainfall increases the amounts of chemicals in the runoff from the watershed. This is a particular problem in the northern watershed of the Chesapeake which extends way up into central Pennsylvania. This area has many small farms where the farmers use large amounts of fertilizer and insecticide to maximize yield from their relatively small acreage. The more rain , the more these farming chemicals run off into the Chesapeake Bay from that area of the watershed. It further causes the ph of the runoff and bay waters to the acidic size which results in the leaching of metals like copper and aluminum from the soil. These metals leaching into the Bay are lethal to hatched eggs.
This info jives with what Bob Pond used to tell me over the years when I would frequently go to the Atom Factory which was 15 minutes from my house.
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