After a deadly and devastating weekend of flooding in portions of the South, another round of rain was expected in the region on Tuesday and Wednesday, forecasters warned.
Over the weekend, surging water battered the Nashville area, killing at leastsix people and forcing scores more to flee their homes in a frantic search for higher ground.
Showers and thunderstorms were forecast along the Gulf Coast initially on Tuesday before expanding northward into Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee and Kentucky on Tuesday night, AccuWeather said.
Rainfall in those states was expected to become heavier and more widespread – right over the areas that don't need it.
"The rainfall may be heavy, which could result in new or worsening flooding problems," AccuWeather senior meteorologist Mike LeSeney said.
The predicted rain "is not something we want with the ground still saturated and rivers and streams running so full," the National Weather Service in Nashville said. "Many areas will be ill-equipped to bear the additional burden of more rainfall."
But unlike weather systems in recent weeks, which spawned dozens of tornadoes and widespread swaths of wind damage across the South, a large-scale outbreak of severe weather was not expected, according to AccuWeather.
Floodwaters barraged a city already weary from a string of disasters in 2020. Authorities found four people dead in South Nashville on Sunday morning, exceeding the death toll of the March 2020 tornado, which killed two Nashville residents.
Two others also died as a result of the flooding, the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency reported — one in Hawkins County and one in Cheatham County.
'It's been a very tough year':At least four dead as record rainfall slams Tennessee; flooding remains a threat
And there is some other good news in the long-range forecast: "Fortunately, we`re anticipating a long dry spell once the rain finally exits the region later on Wednesday," the weather service in Nashville said.
In fact, much of the South could remain rain-free through much of the first full week of April, AccuWeather said.
And waters have been receding in most area rivers since Monday morning.
The weekend flooding in Nashville was the worst to hit the region since May 2010. Those floods caused 21 deaths in Tennessee and an estimated $1.5 billion in damage in Nashville.
Meteorologists with the weather service said 7.01 inches of rain fell at the Nashville airport from Saturday to Sunday. It was the second-highest two-day rainfall total ever recorded in the city and the highest ever for a day in March.
Fire and emergency management officials launched boats to rescue about 130 people from homes and vehicles in Nashville alone. Dozens more were rescued in neighboring counties.
March historically is a turbulent month for weather in Tennessee. Last March, tornadoes killed more than 20 people and destroyed more than 140 buildings in the middle of the state.
Contributing: Elinor Aspegren, USA TODAY; The Tennessean; The Associated Press
