This study investigates, with the aid of a water vapor back-trajectory technique, the large-scale source of moisture for a series of floods that affected the north-western and north-central Mediterranean regions between 30 September and 8 October 1998. It is shown that three westward moving hurricanes of the 1998 Atlantic season, even though decayed to extra-tropical storms, carried noticeable amounts of moisture to the proximity of western Europe during the last days of September and the first days of October 1998. In spite of the fact that the weather systems that actually caused the floods were non-tropical, results suggest that the additional contribution of these Atlantic hurricanes, in terms of moisture advection, was important. Therefore eastern Atlantic tropical systems, although rare, can have a severe hydrological impact on the Mediterranean region. ¿ 2001 American Geophysical Union