COLUMBIA, S.C. — Tropical Storm Bret has formed in the Atlantic, as the tropics look uncharacteristically busy for this time of year.
As of Monday afternoon, what had been Tropical Depression Three became Bret, with maximum sustained winds of 40 miles an hour. It was moving to the west at 21 miles an hour.
The storm was over a thousand miles from the Caribbean islands and there are no watches or warnings in effect.
Bret is expected to reach hurricane status. It's too early to say what, if any, impact it would have on the U.S., including South Carolina, but we will need to keep an eye on it as it moves east. Meanwhile, another system is right on its heels and may also turn into a tropical storm in the coming days.
Back home in the Midlands, the overall pattern is a very unusual look for this time of the year as we see an upper level low pressure sitting over the Southeast. This will allow for plenty of moisture to be funneled into the region for most of next week. Flash flooding will be a concern with higher amounts of rain.
Storms have already moved through on Monday morning and we will continue to see the chance of scattered storms into the afternoon and evening.
This low will continue to spin over the south bringing more scattered to widespread rain chances on Tuesday.
Wednesday, we could see some flooding rain as the potential of heavy rain looks more likely. Rain will likely not be constant but rounds of heavy rain could lead to multiple inches of rain in some locations.
This wet pattern looks to continue into the end of the week and potentially even next weekend as the system moves westward slightly towards the end of the week. As of right now through Friday it is looking like anywhere between 3-5" of rain will be possible with locally higher amounts. Those that see the higher amounts could run into flooding issues.
One benefit of all this rain is that the heat will be nowhere to be found. As of right now, the daytime highs in the Midlands will struggle to reach the low 80s each day.