Seeing our first tropical system in the Gulf of Mexico this year is a reminder that we need to monitor storms like these closely in North Carolina for several reasons.

While it is true that our hardest hits from tropical systems in North Carolina come from the Atlantic, storms from the Gulf of Mexico can often be just as dangerous.

There is a long history of Gulf storms causing major problems for us, and you don't have to go back far to see it.

Below is an image of storms that impacted North Carolina during the record Atlantic season last year.

It was indeed a powerful Atlantic storm that hit us the hardest. That storm was Isaias, and it devastated the coast with storm surge, wind damage and multiple tornadoes.

But, notice the storms that came from the Gulf side.

It started with Sally, but when we got into the Greek alphabet, Beta, Delta, Zeta and Eta all came from the Gulf side, and all of them impacted our weather.

As tropical moisture from these storms moved inland, we had periods of heavy rain. That kept us on our toes, as did the threat for severe thunderstorms and tornadoes with each passing storm.

The hardest hit from the Gulf last year came from Eta. Even though the center of the storm passed to our south, it pushed huge amounts of tropical moisture our way, leading to extremely heavy rain across the state.

The flooding from that rain turned deadly, with 11 fatalities reported in North and South Carolina. Several deaths came from Alexander County as a campground was washed away by a surprise flash flood.

It took several days for rivers, creeks and streams to recede and several months to clean things up.

So, we need to watch these Gulf of Mexico storms very closely.

As we saw last year, flooding is usually the main issue with these storms, but if enough energy makes it here, severe thunderstorms and tornadoes are also very possible.

Don't drop your guard on the Gulf storm systems. They can hit us just as hard and be just as deadly as the Atlantic storms.