Rich McKay
(Reuters) – Tropical Storm Debby is expected to pack heavy rain and high surf in Gulf waters on Sunday before moving north along the Florida coast and making landfall as a “life-threatening” hurricane on Monday, forecasters said.
“It’s becoming increasingly clear that Debby will become a hurricane before it makes landfall,” said Jamie Rome, deputy director of the National Hurricane Center, urging people to follow evacuation orders.
Debby became a named tropical storm late Saturday night after several days of widespread murky conditions in the Atlantic Ocean, and left Cuba’s northern coast on Saturday evening about 100 miles (160 kilometers) west-southwest of Key West, Florida, the NHC said.
The hurricane was moving slowly toward the Gulf Coast about 260 miles (390 kilometers) south-southwest of Tampa at 14 miles (23 kph) per hour and was expected to accelerate to wind speeds of 45 to more than 70 miles per hour as it strengthened and became a hurricane by Sunday night.
“This is a life-threatening situation,” the NHC said in its report. “There are many hazards beyond just the wind,” Rome said.
He warned of a storm surge of up to 7 feet (2 meters) in Florida’s Big Bend region, expected to hit just southeast of the state’s peninsula panhandle.
“I’m 6 feet tall,” Rome said, “so that’s taller than me.” Downpours of up to 10 inches (25 centimeters) are expected, with some areas seeing as much as 15 inches of rain. More rain is on the way if the storm weakens or stalls over land, Rome said.
Debby is expected to weaken after landfall but will bring heavy rains as it moves across central Florida and down the Atlantic coast, before slowly moving toward Savannah, Georgia, and then Charleston, South Carolina, early in the week.
A storm surge is expected from Bonita Beach north to Tampa Bay, which could send ocean waves further inland than usual, damaging properties and endangering everyone in their path.
Mandatory and voluntary evacuation orders were issued Saturday for parts of Pasco-Hernando and Citrus counties on the Gulf Coast.
Tropical storm warnings stretch from far southern Florida north to the Fort Myers area, which was hit hard by Hurricane Ian in 2022.
Gov. Ron DeSantis has called up 3,000 National Guard troops and issued emergency orders for most cities and counties in the state ahead of the expected landfall.
Forecasters expect the 2024 season, which began June 1, to be a time of high Atlantic hurricane production, with between four and seven major hurricanes among the 25 named storms — more than the record-breaking 2005 season that produced Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita.
There has only been one Atlantic hurricane so far this year: Beryl. The fastest Category 5 storm on record, it slammed into the Caribbean and Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula before hitting the Gulf Coast of Texas as a Category 1 storm with winds of 95 mph.
Debby is expected to follow a similar path to deadly 2022 Hurricane Ian, which killed at least 103 people in Florida and caused billions of dollars in damage as it moved along the Gulf Coast.
