Data from NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission satellite, known as TRMM, shows midweek storms tend to be stronger, drop more rain and span a larger area across the Southeast compared to calmer and drier weekends, the space agency said Friday in a release.

Thomas Bell, an atmospheric scientist at Goddard Space Flight Center, said the trend suggests a link between rain and atmospheric pollution from humans, which also peaks midweek.

"It appears that we're making storms more violent," Bell said in a statement.

The study was published online in the American Geophysical Union's Journal of Geophysical Research.