Claudette regained strength into a tropical storm with maximum sustained winds of 40 mph over eastern North Carolina early Monday morning after it turned deadly while tracking across the Southeastern states over the weekend. The storm left a trail of damage and flooding in its wake, and AccuWeather forecasters say it could cause some impacts along the Eastern Seaboard before it eyes Atlantic Canada.

The storm took a deadly turn Saturday when 13 people in Alabama died, authorities said. Ten of the fatalities, including eight children, were the result of a 15-vehicle crash on Interstate 65. Two others died when a tree fell on their home and one person died after a car ran off the road and was swept into floodwaters, The Associated Press reported.

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As of 11 a.m. EDT Monday, Claudette was cruising east-northeast at 28 mph over the western Atlantic, about 90 miles south of Ocean City, Maryland.

As Claudette pushed offshore Monday morning, gusty winds greeted eastern North Carolina, including winds near tropical storm strength on Cape Hatteras. The tropical storm is forecast to continue its northeasterly track across the Atlantic and move farther away from the coast. As this continues into Monday night, winds will likely wane across the Outer Banks.

Where there are no longer any coastal watches or warnings in effect, some unusually rough surf may also linger for eastern North Carolina as well as the Delmarva Peninsula into Monday evening.

No direct impact to the rest of the northeastern United States is expected, given the size of the storm.

“Claudette is rather compact, which will help to make the storm’s impacts limited across the upper part of the mid-Atlantic and New England,” said AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Alex Sosnowski.

However, the path of the storm may jog just far enough west for some rough surf and rip currents for the Massachusetts Cape and the islands of Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard through Tuesday.

Eventually, the tropical system will move far enough north to be influenced by the cooler waters of the North Atlantic Ocean, helping Claudette to again lose wind intensity and also lose its tropical characteristics as it nears Atlantic Canada.

Even without being a tropical storm, Claudette is likely to deliver a wave of heavy rain to Nova Scotia and Newfoundland by the middle of the week. By this point, any of Claudette's moisture is likely to move quickly, limiting the region from higher rainfall totals. Some rough seas and rip currents are forecast to impact southern Nova Scotia until the storm has passed.

AccuWeather Meteorologist Randy Adkins says Claudette's unusual strengthen pattern is not the first time a tropical system has gained wind intensity over over North Carolina.

“Hurricane Danny, back in 1997, made landfall along the Gulf coast then continued to lose wind strength as it moved northeastward across the southeastern U.S. over the next few days. However, before re-emerging over the waters of the west Atlantic, Danny strengthened back to a tropical storm over North Carolina,” said Adkins.

Tropical Storm Claudette became the third named storm of the 2021 Atlantic hurricane season early on Saturday morning after it moved onshore over the southern Louisiana, but by the late evening it was downgraded to a tropical depression. Claudette spent a little over 24 hours as a tropical depression as it brought heavy rain to parts of the southeastern U.S. on Sunday.

AccuWeather meteorologists began to monitor the western Gulf of Mexico for tropical development over a week before Tropical Storm Claudette was named.

Even before strengthening to a tropical storm for the first time, Claudette brought drenching downpours to portions of Louisiana, southern Alabama and Mississippi, and the Florida Panhandle starting late on Friday. Widespread rainfall totals of 4-8 inches from Friday to Saturday were common across portions of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama before Claudette moved away from the area overnight Saturday.

As it moved over land on Saturday, Claudette lost wind intensity and was designated a tropical depression. Even with lesser wind gusts, heavy rainfall continued to impact the southeastern U.S. into Monday morning. Widespread rainfall amounts of 2-4 inches spread across Georgia and both North and South Carolina through early Monday.

Fortunately, parts of the region are in need of more rain. Portions of North Carolina and South Carolina, including cities like Winston-Salem, Charlotte and Myrtle Beach, are either abnormally dry or in a moderate drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.