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.

The system, identified as Invest 93L, originally developed east of Florida before traversing the entire state and ending up over Louisiana and Mississippi.

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.