After a period of scorched skies and parched landscapes, widespread showers are converging on South Florida in torrents that could bring more than a half-foot of rainfall through Wednesday.

The National Weather Service in Miami said flood watches are likely early this week but may continue through Friday as a pattern shift allows juicy tropical moisture to surge in from the south, dousing areas suffering severe drought from the dry early days of the rainy season.

While Palm Beach County is forecast to receive 3 to 6 inches of rain through Wednesday, areas in southwest Florida, including Naples and Everglades City, could experience up to 10.5 inches.

Chris Fisher, a meteorologist with NWS Miami, said a stalled front across the northern reaches of the state will be the catalyst for much of the rainfall, helping pull up moisture from the Caribbean.

“The key thing to remember is the rainfall amounts will be highly variable so there are certainly areas that can see more and some that will see less,” Fisher said. “There are flooding concerns across metro areas, especially if you get repeated rounds of heavy rain over the same area.”

Fisher noted that more rain is expected into the weekend and the Weather Prediction Center is forecasting up to 15 inches of rain through Saturday with the heaviest falling along the southwest coast of the state. Palm Beach County could receive 7 to 10 inches of rain through Saturday.

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Although the wet season began in South Florida on May 15, Palm Beach County was designated last week by the U.S. Drought Monitor as being in moderate to severe drought.

In May, West Palm Beach got just 1.18 inches of rain, which is a deficit of 3.73 inches for the month. That made May the eighth driest in 130 years of records kept for West Palm Beach.

FOX Weather hurricane specialist Bryan Norcross said an unusual deep dive in the jet stream for the past several weeks prohibited moisture from oozing into Florida from the south.

“Statistically, June is one the rainiest months in Florida because fronts from the north and tropical moisture from the south meet over the state,” Norcross wrote in his Hurricane Intel column. “The jet stream pattern that pushes fronts into North Florida also enhances rainfall south of the front. So far this season, the jet stream has been farther south than normal, so June in Florida has been relatively dry.”

The expected rainfall will also keep temperatures in the more normal range for this time of year and no heat advisories or warnings are expected this week.

High temperatures Tuesday through Friday are forecast to reach into the upper 80s with overnight lows in the upper 70s.

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There are no tropical disturbances expected through the next seven days, according to the National Hurricane Center. But several meteorologists are watching an area in the southwestern Gulf of Mexico where a broad area of low pressure is forecast to form.

The jet stream has been known to pull low pressure from that area into the invitingly warm Gulf of Mexico to form a tropical system.

“Currently, it doesn’t appear that that would happen in our seven-day forecast window. If it happens at all,” Norcross said.

Kimberly Miller is a journalist for The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA Today Network of Florida. She covers real estate and how growth affects South Florida’s environment. Subscribe to The Dirt for a weekly real estate roundup. If you have news tips, please send them to kmiller@pbpost.com. Help support our local journalism, subscribe today.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: After the drought heavy rains threaten South Florida with up to foot of rain