By ,
Published September 25, 2017
Downpours will raise the risk of localized flooding across the southeastern United States prior to a push of drier air over the weekend.
Part of the system that will douse the Midwest and Northeast into the end of the week will also slide southward, triggering locally heavy and gusty thunderstorms over the South through Friday.
The thunderstorms will be most numerous and disruptive during the afternoon and evening hours.
The greatest threat for flooding to occur on a localized basis will be where downpours have been most frequent so far this month and repeat over the next few days.
During the first half of the month, New Orleans exceeded its normal rainfall for all of August as over 9 inches of rain poured down. Above-normal rainfall has also fallen in Atlanta and Augusta, Georgia; Raleigh, North Carolina; Biloxi, Mississippi; Montgomery, Alabama; and Pensacola, Florida.
“This system will then push to the coast and stall out at the start of the weekend,” AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Frank Strait said. “This will keep the Gulf Coast active.”
Shower and thunderstorm activity will be suppressed southward along the Interstate 10 corridor from Louisiana to the Florida Panhandle.
Drier air will press across the interior, leading to a mainly dry weekend in Nashville, Tennessee; Atlanta; Birmingham, Alabama; and Charlotte, North Carolina, which is good news for those with travel plans for the solar eclipse.
A separate feature will need to be monitored in South Florida over the weekend.
A southeasterly flow of air will send a plume of tropical moisture and enhanced downpours from Miami to Naples and Fort Myers, Florida.
Street and highway flooding could occur in this corridor as several inches of rain could pour down in as many hours.
“An area of high pressure aloft will start to build over the region, which will suppress shower and thunderstorm activity early next week,” Strait said.
An area of high pressure is a mainly dry weather feature that spins clockwise in the atmosphere. Any showers and thunderstorms that manage to form under these systems are usually very spotty and widely separated in nature.
This will tend to be the case early next week across the interior Southeast, allowing some parts of the region to have an uninhibited view of the solar eclipse.
Stormy conditions may once again become more widespread across the South toward the middle of the week as the high pressure system begins to break down.
All interests in the Southeast will also need to monitor the tropics closely next week, as two out of the three budding tropical systems could have impacts on the U.S.
https://www.foxnews.com/us/stormy-pattern-to-persist-across-southern-us-into-the-weekend