Will tropical systems end Maryland's drought?

The commercial weather company is calling it, rather inelegantly, "Troptober" - suggesting that tropical weather will be the dominant force at work here next month. Their thinking is that the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico are about to start boiling, tossing off tropical systems that have an increasing chance to make landfall in the northern Gulf region, or to track up the East Coast.

"Repeating downpours could add up to a foot of rain in some locations, not only leading to street flooding and highway slow-downs, but perhaps all the way to small stream and even some river flooding.

"One tropical system alone can easily drop several inches of rain and erase the drought or abnormally dry pattern in these areas. There is the potential for several such systems to move northward. The details of which are not known at this time."

The National Hurricane Center today is already tracking a new tropical depression - the 15th of the season - in the western Caribbean (satellite photo). But it appears headed for Central America. Hurricane Watches are already posted for parts of Nicaragua and Honduras.

UPDATE: The storm has now reached tropical storm strength. Its name is Matthew, the 13th named storm of the season. Here is the forecast storm track. And here is the view from orbit.

Let's see how good AccuWeather.com's experts really are.