VALDOSTA — Heavy rains spurred by a tropical storm took their toll on Lowndes County during the weekend and aren’t finished yet, forecasters said.

Lowndes County received 5.63 inches of rain during the weekend, said Ricardo Humphries, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service’s office in Tallahassee, Fla.

The rain caused flash flooding in Lowndes, resulting in the “off and on” closing of a couple of roads, said Paige Dukes, public information officer for the county.

Near Lake Park, a section of U.S. 41 flooded Sunday.

Monday, county utilities workers found the ground had caved in under piping at a sewage pumping station on Ga. 376 near the intersection with Loch Laurel Road.

There was no spill, Dukes said; the heavy rain simply washed out soil under a section of piping.

The pumping station was operating normally Monday, said James Rosenbaum, superintendent of operations for the utilities department.

The rain was caused by humid air pulled north by Tropical Storm Cristobal, which formed in the Gulf of Mexico last week and made landfall in Louisiana during the weekend, Humphries said.

Cristobal’s impact will be felt in Lowndes County through the weekend, with rain chances ranging from 40-60% all week, according to the weather service’s Valdosta forecast.

“We’re going to see very wet, very moist conditions through the weekend,” Humphries said.

The upcoming rain chances represent “a really typical summertime pattern,” said Brett Rossio, a meteorologist with the private forecasting firm AccuWeather.

Rain this week is likely to be in the form of “pop-up” storms that don’t move much, hovering over a particular area, raising the possibility of more isolated flash flooding in Lowndes, he said.

“They could be real gullywashers,” Rossio said.

One side effect of the rainstorms could be keeping the temperatures moderate, he said. The average temperature for Valdosta for this time of year is 90 degrees, Rossio said. The weather service forecast calls for highs in the upper 80s all week.

Neither forecaster foresaw any real chance of widespread severe weather in South Georgia this week.

Terry Richards is senior reporter at The Valdosta Daily Times.