Although the Atlantic Ocean is free of hurricanes at the moment, there are signs that an uptick in activity is on the horizon.This spells potentially bad news for the soggy and soaked Southeast, which has endured an unusually wet and dreary summer.
If heavy rain from a tropical storm falls on the already sodden ground across the region, big flooding would be possible, AccuWeather meteorologist Paul Pastelok says.
"It could be devastating to a lot of places down there," he says.
"If the soil is saturated, the rain can't soak in, and it runs off," says Deke Arndt, chief of the climate monitoring branch of the National Climatic Data Center. He adds that the area of most concern runs north from the Florida Panhandle up through the Appalachians.
Tropical systems can dump incredible amounts of rain in a short period of time.
Notorious rainmakers have included Hurricane Camille, which dropped over 2 feet of water in just eight hours on Nelson County, Va., in 1969, leading to floods that killed 113 people, reports weather historian Christopher Burt in his book Extreme Weather.
It doesn't have to be a hurricane to cause trouble: In 1979, Tropical Storm Claudette dumped more than 3 feet of rain in 24 hours on Alvin, Texas, Burt reports.
How dreary has it been? "Parts of the Southeast have been record wet this summer," Arndt says.
For instance, Asheville, N.C., has seen nearly 30 inches of rain since June 1, the National Weather Service reports. The western Carolina town usually sees only about 12 inches during the three summer months, according to the weather service. For the entire year in Asheville, it's already nearing its wettest year on record.
In Augusta, Ga., which averages about 43 inches of rain for the entire year, the city has already received 45 inches, Pastelok says. Atlanta has had almost 2 feet of rain since June 1, which is about double the average.
For now, the nervous waiting game is ongoing: "While dry air continues to hinder tropical development over much of the Atlantic Basin at present, the scale is likely to tip in favor of multiple tropical systems within the next few weeks," AccuWeather meteorologist Alex Sosnowski reports.