VALDOSTA, Ga. — Much of the Southeast this week can expect sunny skies and warmer temperatures that feel more like summer after feeling the effects of Harvey and most recently taking a beating from Irma. However, there’s another hurricane looming on the horizon that those in the nation’s southern states need to follow closely.

For South Georgia, high pressure systems should keep things “pretty benign” through Tuesday, Don Harrigan, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Tallahassee, Florida, office said.

According to the broader NWS forecast, temperatures in the days ahead across the Southeastern states are expected to range between the mid eighties in South Carolina and Georgia with highs in the low nineties in Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas. Rain chances are expected to pick up slightly — to the 20-30 percent range — for the rest of the week. 

“It should be your typical mid-summer pattern,” Frank Strait, senior meteorologist with the private forecasting firm AccuWeather, said. He didn’t expect widespread severe weather in South Georgia this week, but said isolated “pop-up” wind damage was possible.

Still, as hurricane season continues, the newly formed Hurricane Maria could prove to be an inconvenient threat to the region as many Texans, Floridians and Georgians are still working to salvage the remnants of the summer’s two memorable, damaging storms.

Many of the residents and evacuees affected by the subsequent weather events are still working to repair related damage as recovery efforts continue in Texas and Florida. A number of residents are still living in shelters and hotels across the region, with more than one million Floridians still without power.

An easterly wind flow caused by Hurricane Jose, far out in the Atlantic and expected to miss the Southeast entirely, and Hurricane Maria in the tropics will pull in increased moisture, raising rain chances, Harrigan said.

The location of Hurricane Maria will likely also raise concerns of those in her potential path.

Maria could have “some effect on the Southeast,” Strait said.

Maria, a Category 3 storm, is currently located near Barbados, heading west and on track over the next five days to pass near Puerto Rico and the Domincan Republic, according to the National Hurricane Center.

It’s too early to tell if the hurricane poses a threat to the Southeast, but given Maria’s current Category 3 classification, people “should pay attention to this storm,” Harrigan said.

Long-range forecast models predict Maria will take a northerly turn that would take it away from Florida, “but the models also said that early on about Irma,” Harrigan said.

Richards writes for the Valdosta, Georgia, Daily Times.