A sprawling area storms churning toward the Gulf Coast threatens to bring significant rain and flash flooding this week to a large swath of the southeast, from the Florida panhandle to Louisiana and parts of eastern Texas.

Its chances for tropical development are less, but rainfall flooding is a threat, regardless, in the lower Mississippi Valley. Here's our latest forecast.

A cluster of thunderstorms that meteorologists call a tropical disturbance was moving west across the far northern Gulf on Thursday, delivering scattered heavy rainfall over the central Gulf Coast. Rain was expected to continue into Friday.