The threat from Tropical Storm Debby, which has ambled across the Southeast since first making landfall as a hurricane early Monday, has not entirely ended across the Carolinas, where significant rainfall is expected on Thursday.
But Debby’s days are numbered. After unleashing more than a foot of rain from Florida to North Carolina, stressing dams and flooding homes, the storm is expected to move swiftly to the north after its second landfall on Thursday morning.
For a couple more days, the tropical storm, in some fashion or another, will discharge more rainfall as it moves up the spine of the Appalachian Mountains, into upstate New York and then over New England before finally exiting the East Coast.
Here’s the forecast.
Thursday: Debby speeds up, and the rain shifts inland.
Debby made landfall, for a second time, in South Carolina on Thursday morning, and will begin to pick up pace as it moves inland. A more westerly forecast path will bring its heavy rains farther inland than they have extended so far.
Heavy precipitation is likely to reach into central North Carolina and through southwest Virginia, forecasters said on Wednesday, with the most rain falling between Roanoke, Va., and Charlotte, N.C.
There is a moderate to high risk of excessive rain that could lead to flash flooding across this region, with three to seven inches of rain falling. It is not out of the realm of possibility that, in some locations, up to 10 inches of rain could fall.
Friday: The storm moves over the Northeast.
By midday on Friday, Debby should be somewhere over the Mid-Atlantic region, and by this time, the storm will most likely be absorbed by a typical weather pattern sweeping through the Northeast.
The deep layer of moisture from Debby, combined with this other storm system, will produce moderate to heavy rain from the central region of Maryland into upstate New York, Vermont and New Hampshire.
Two to four inches of rain are expected in this region, with some areas reaching up to six inches. This is likely to produce considerable flash flooding and cause some rivers to overflow.
Saturday: Things calm down.
On Saturday, a week after Debby received a name while moving through the eastern Gulf of Mexico, the major flooding concerns from the storm may finally come to an end.
But there is at least some chance of continued risk in New England before the storm system swiftly exits the region.