Tropical Storm Debby – which made landfall in northern Florida on Monday as a hurricane – will continue to impact eastern and southeastern parts of the United States in the coming days.

Debby will slowly drift north through the remainder this week, drawing in moist air from the Atlantic. Having already dropped up to 400mm rain over parts of Florida, it will produce incredibly high rainfall amounts for parts of Georgia and North and South Carolina.

Julian Heming is a tropical cyclone expert at the Met Office and has been tracking Debby’s progress. He said: 
“Tropical Storm Debby is likely to bring significant impacts to eastern parts of the United States. Moist air from the subtropical Atlantic is being drawn northwards by the storm and current forecasts suggest 200-400mm of rain will fall quite widely in the area, with parts of the Carolinas possibly seeing as much as 600mm of rain in the coming 3-5 days.

“Average annual rainfall at Charleston, South Carolina is around 1200-1300mm, so this means this region could see six months’ worth of rain fall within a few days.

“While confidence in the track of Debby decreases later in the week, the remnants of the storm are most likely to continue northwards on the eastern side of the United States, bringing a chance of continued heavy rain for the Eastern Seaboard over the weekend.”