Heavy Rain, Next Southern Threat

The South has been enduring bitterly cold temperatures the past several mornings.Relief from the cold, but not the adverse weather, is on the way.

A potent storm from the Gulf of Mexico threatens to unleash flooding rain across the South over the weekend.

Steady rain will develop across Texas Thursday night as the storm begins to take shape in the western Gulf of Mexico.

The storm will inch northeastward on Friday, spreading its rain to the lower Mississippi Valley.

Drenching rain will likely encompass the rest of the South on Saturday.

Enough instability may also be present to ignite severe thunderstorms across the Florida Peninsula, one week after snow and ice pellets made a rare appearance.

The storm has the potential to unleash 1 to 3 inches of rain with locally higher amounts of up to 6 inches.

Rainfall of this magnitude could lead to flash flooding, especially where rivers remain swollen following an extremely wet end to 2009.

Story by AccuWeather.com Senior Meteorologist Kristina Pydynowski