Could a piece of Florence's moisture develop tropically, head toward East Coast next week?

Even though Florence has been completely sheared apart by strong winds over the North Atlantic, some of the leftover showers and thunderstorms may loop back around and approach the Carolina coast early next week.

This patch of moisture will drift southward near Bermuda this weekend but is then projected to turn westward on Monday.

"The area of disturbed weather has the potential to acquire some tropical characteristics next week if it can survive vertical wind shear," according to AccuWeather Hurricane Expert Dan Kottlowski.

Wind shear is the increase in wind speed at increasing altitude or over horizontal distance. Strong wind shear can prevent a tropical storm from forming and cause a well-developed hurricane to weaken.

While not common, it is not unheard of for a new tropical storm to be spun off from the debris clouds, showers and thunderstorms from a tropical storm that has diminished.

If it believed that the old circulation is still intact, the new system will retain the same name. Hurricane Ivan in September of 2004 is one of the more recent example of this. If the circulation is no longer intact, a new name is assigned.

In the remote chance it gathers tropical storm status, it would not be called Florence. This is because the original circulation from Florence no longer exists.

The area of showers and thunderstorms is a mere fraction of what was once Florence.

"Since this feature is so weak to begin with, chances for development prior to it reaching North Carolina are quite low at this point," Kottlowski said.

Because wind shear is forecast to increase as it nears the coast early next week, much of the direct impact in terms of torrential downpours with the feature may fall over the Atlantic Ocean just east of the coast.

During Tuesday and Wednesday, it is likely for the area of disturbed weather to be turned northward, then perhaps northeastward and back out to sea.

Around the same time, a swath of showers and thunderstorms is forecast to approach from the west and may become intertwined with the disturbance, so that it may become indistinguishable.

At this point, there is little to be concerned about from the disturbance spinning up into a major tropical threat over the Atlantic. Most likely showers that move in from the north and west on Wednesday and Thursday may pack more of a punch than from the Atlantic.

Not enough rain is expected to fall from any source over the next week to impact river levels and river flooding. However, any downpours next week could trigger isolated flash flooding, due to the saturated state of the ground following Florence's crawl through the Carolinas.

While the risk of this patch of tropical moisture evolving into a major threat is extremely low, the 2018 Atlantic hurricane season is far from over with other areas of interest in the basin over the next week.