Zachary Handlos, director of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology, said the region’s development can make flooding worse, even when rainfall totals are relatively low.

“Being in a major metro area, we have a lot of paved surfaces, so it really only takes an inch or two inches of rain to have minor flooding events,” Handlos said.

Roads, parking lots and buildings prevent rainwater from soaking naturally into the ground. Instead, water runs across paved surfaces and collects in streets and drainage systems.

Handlos compared the effect to an ice-skating rink, where water has limited places to go and flows from higher elevations to lower ones. That can leave low-lying roads and neighborhoods vulnerable when heavy rain falls faster than the drainage system can handle.