Tropical Storm Debby has been upgraded to a Category 1 hurricane by the National Hurricane Center, and it continues on a collision course with the Florida coastline.
The agency issued a storm advisory at 11pm warning that the hurricane has winds of 75 miles per hour, presenting a ‘major flood threat’ to the southeastern US this week.
A hurricane warning is now in effect for the Florida gulf coast from Yankeetown – 93 miles north of Tampa – all the way to Indian Pass, which is well into the Florida panhandle.
Hurricane Debby is likely to threaten multiple areas of Florida with flooding, but the exact timing of rainfall is still undetermined.
The hurricane will make landfall by Monday at 8am in the Big Bend of Florida, an region of marshland and woodlands that also contains Tallahassee, a city of over 200,000. Gainesville and Jacksonville are also likely be under major threat as the hurricane progresses.
‘Debby is then expected to move slowly across northern Florida and southern Georgia Monday and Tuesday, and be near the Georgia coast by Tuesday night,’ according to the advisory.
By the middle of the week, the hurricane is expected to dump nearly 2 feet of rain on parts of Georgia and South Carolina.
Specifically, the cities of Savannah, Georgia, and Charleston, South Carolina could both be hit with a month’s worth of rain in a single day – and maybe even a typical summer’s worth of rain throughout the course of the storm, ABC7 reported.
This ‘potentially historic rainfall’ across southeast Georgia and South Carolina, as the National Hurricane Center put it, will cause dangerous flash flooding.
The governors of Florida, Georgia and South Carolina have already declared a state of emergency ahead of Debby and are urging residents to hunker down and prepare for the multiple impacts of the storm.
‘I think what’s going to make this much different than what we had with Idalia is it is going to move very slowly once it enters Florida – it’s going to be southern Georgia, northern Florida – and it is just going to drop an inordinate amount of water on the north central Florida region,’ Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis told FOX Weather on Sunday.
‘There’s going to be a lot of trees that are going to fall down. You’re going to have debris. You are going to have power interruption,’ he added, ‘so just prepare for that.’
Right now, the center of the hurricane is situated in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, with the outer parts of the storm lashing the west coast of the Florida peninsula.
A preview of what’s to come was seen along beach cities like Fort Myers, Sanibel Island, and Gulf Port, which are all set along the state’s famously volatile western coast.
For now Fort Myers appears to be the hardest hit, though despite intense flooding, no official evacuation order has been given.
Cape Coral also experienced flooding, as are the sister cities’ barrier island Sanibel, as is Gulf Port further north.
In St. Petersburg, which is near Tampa, waves bashed the coast as tropical storm-force winds howled.
Thousands of Tampa Bay area residents remain without power, even though the storm is gradually leaving the area.
There are a total of more than 80,000 customers who have no electricity in Florida, according to poweroutage.us.
The hurricane advisory stressed that the incoming storm is ‘a life-threatening situation,’ and people within the affected or soon-to-be-affected areas should take precautions to protect themselves and their property from rising water levels.
When the hurricane eventually makes landfall, WeatherTiger meteorologist Ryan Truchelut said he expects Tallahasee to escape the worst of the storm’s vengeance.
He expects Tallahassee will see sporadic lower end tropical storm winds ranging from 40 to 50 miles per hour, he told the Tallahasee Democrat.
Forecasters are taking to social media to explain how Debby’s landfall is yet another sign that this year’s hurricane season could be nightmarish.
Colorado State University hurricane research Philip Klotzbach noted that Hurricane Beryl just recently made landfall in Texas in July.
‘It would be only the 9th year on record with two continental US hurricane landfalls by August 5,’ he wrote on X. ‘Other years were: 1886, 1909, 1916, 1934, 1936, 1959, 2005, and 2020. Hurricane Beryl made landfall in Texas in July.’
A tornado watch has also been issued for much of the Florida Peninsula and parts of southern Georgia until Monday morning, covering more than 13 million people, including the cities of Tallahassee, Jacksonville, Tampa and Orlando.
State courts in 22 counties will be closed in anticipation of the storm’s arrival, according to a social media post from the Florida Supreme Court.
Debby is also wreaking havoc at airports as far down the coast as Miami.
Miami International Airport caused 19 percent of incoming flights to be called off and 10 percent of departing flights to be canceled, Local10 reported.
Hundreds more flights were delayed.
Tallahassee Mayor John Dailey announced on X that the city’s airport would be preemptively shutting down at midnight.
‘Tallahassee International Airport will suspend non-emergency operations beginning at midnight and anticipates resuming normal operations at noon Monday,’ Dailey wrote. ‘ The Fire Department has five units equipped with rescue watercraft available for immediate deployment should water rescues and/or evacuations be necessary.’
As Debby inevitably moves inland, President Joe Biden approved a disaster declaration for Florida on Sunday, which will send federal resources and personnel to deal with relief efforts.
It isn’t yet clear if Biden will do the same for Georgia and South Carolina, both soon-to-be targets of the impending system.
The next hurricane advisory from the National Hurricane Center will be published at 2am ET.