Delta will continue to wreak havoc as it surges inland

Delta's impacts will continue to be felt long after the storm blasted the Louisiana coastline as a Category 2 hurricane early Friday evening, with soaking rain and locally severe thunderstorms expected to spread across the southern and eastern United States into Sunday.

Winds up to hurricane force, at least 74 mph, blasted portions of Louisiana and Texas early Friday night. As Delta transitioned into a tropical storm early Saturday morning, it continued to produce powerful tropical-storm-force winds across portions of the Gulf coast. By 11 a.m. EDT Saturday, Delta had become a tropical depression over the lower Mississippi Valley.

Despite losing wind intensity, Delta will continue to produce heavy rainfall across the Mississippi and Tennessee valleys, and eventually part of the Northeast.

Locally gusty winds can be strong enough to break tree limbs as far north as middle and western Tennessee by Sunday.

Isolated tornadoes spawned Delta may pose another significant threat in part of the South.

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"As Delta [moves inland], the counterclockwise wind flow around the [storm] may support the development of isolated tornadoes mostly along and to the right of the tropical cyclone's path," AccuWeather's top hurricane expert, Dan Kottlowski said.

There is the potential for severe thunderstorms near and east of the track of the center of Delta through Saturday night in Alabama, Georgia and the Florida Panhandle.

The most far-reaching inland impact from Delta will be heavy rainfall.

The fast forward motion of Delta is forecast to limit the amount of rain and prevent disastrous major river flooding from unfolding.

"As Delta continues to move inland during the second half of the weekend, its center is likely to become poorly defined and could be torn apart by strong westerly winds associated with the jet stream," according to AccuWeather Meteorologist Jake Sojda.

Still, pockets of heavy rainfall with a general 2-4 inches are forecast from middle Tennessee and southern Kentucky to parts of western North Carolina, southwestern Virginia and southern West Virginia. This amount of rain in 24 hours can be enough to lead to urban flooding and quick rises on some of the smaller streams in the region.

"Much of the region, across the lower and middle Mississippi Valley, Tennessee Valley and Ohio Valley, has been pretty dry and can handle a lot of rain right now without significant flooding concerns," Sojda said.

"However, some streets and poor drainage areas are still likely to flood and can be dangerous. Motorists should never try to drive through flooded roadways."

A small amount of the moisture and perhaps part of the circulation from Delta may survive into the central Appalachians and mid-Atlantic region by early next week. However, to say that all of the rain that falls in this zone will be from Delta would be misleading.

Tropical moisture from the Caribbean, combined with Atlantic moisture, non-tropical entities and a bit of Delta, will be factors in any drizzle, patchy rain and downpours from Sunday to Tuesday.

In parts of the Ohio Valley, central Appalachians and Northeast, the rain may be beneficial due to lingering long-term abnormally dry to drought conditions.

Meanwhile, as Delta continues to pull away from southeastern Texas and Louisiana, stifling heat and humidity could add misery to cleanup and recovery efforts through early week.

Keep checking back on AccuWeather.com and stay tuned to the AccuWeather Network on DirecTV, Frontier and Verizon Fios.

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