Following a pause in widespread rainfall this weekend, a forecast return of downpours has the potential to renew and expand flooding in the eastern United States next week.

Call it atmospheric memory or something else. However, the same general weather pattern that brought day after day and hour after hour of downpours to many communities from North Carolina to Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania and central New York state will return during the end of July and into the first part of August.

The jet stream will again become greatly convoluted and cause an atmospheric roadblock to develop once again.

A southward dip in the jet stream will strengthen over the Mississippi Valley, while northward bulges in the jet stream broaden over the Atlantic Ocean and the western U.S. next week.

This pattern will again allow copious amounts of moisture to flow northward from the Gulf of Mexico and part of the tropical Atlantic to a large part of the eastern U.S.

This past week, the position of this moisture stream funneled the heaviest and most persistent rainfall across parts of the mid-Atlantic states and central Appalachians, while sparing the Ohio and Mississippi valleys as well as New England, New Jersey and eastern New York state.

For next week's event, the questions are where will the corridor of heaviest rain set up and how long will it last?

It appears that some or all of the same areas that were hit hard with heavy rain and flooding this past week may get hit again.

In addition, some areas that escaped the worst of the rain and flooding will be at risk this time around.

"One area of concern for flooding next week includes the southern Appalachians and Piedmont from parts of Georgia, South Carolina, western North Carolina to eastern Tennessee, West Virginia and western Virginia," according to AccuWeather Lead Storm Warning Meteorologist Eddie Walker.

The same mechanism that kept rainfall to a minimum along the upper mid-Atlantic coast and in much of New England may come into play once again.

This large area of high pressure over the Atlantic, or Bermuda high, may bulge farther to the west this time and potentially keep the heaviest and steadiest rain west of areas from eastern North Carolina to southeastern New England.

Should this high pressure area become even stronger, it could even force the heaviest rain west of Washington, D.C., and Baltimore for a time.

There are some differences in the pattern next week, versus this past week, according to AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Brett Anderson.

"Last week, southerly winds at the surface were aligned with winds high up in the atmosphere," Anderson said. "This caused downpours to repeat and train for hours in localized areas."

"Next week, winds may not be perfectly aligned, so the storms are more likely to have some forward west to east motion and less likely to bring such a heavy amount of rain in a span of a few hours in most locations."

The problem is that flooding can occur even if the rain is neither as heavy nor as persistent as the past week, since many streams will remain high and the ground is likely to remain soggy.

Another potential problem with storms next week may be related to more forward motion. Some of the storms may produce strong wind gusts which could take a toll in saturated areas as trees topple.

The details will unfold over the next several days. However, the takeaway is the wet pattern and risk of flooding is far from over in the Eastern states and periodic problems may continue through August.

Even as weather systems may resume their normal west to east path toward the second week in August, showers and storms may be frequent enough in some areas to keep the ground wet and rivers running high.

Any tropical storm or hurricane that rolls ashore in the region later in August or September could lead to a flooding disaster in such a scenario.

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