Although the center of Tropical Storm Debby is stalled over the northeast Gulf of Mexico, its impacts are already widespread over the state of Florida.
Tropical storm warnings are posted for parts of the Florida Gulf Coast. Tropical-storm force winds (40 mph or higher) are possible in these areas. Storm surge flooding is also a significant threat along the Florida Panhandle coast and the western coast of Florida since Debby's circulation is embedded in a rather large wind field.
Regardless of Debby's future track, heavy rain, flooding (from both rainfall and storm surge) and isolated tornadoes are the most imminent threats as described above.
Debby has become the record earliest-in-season 4th named Atlantic named storm, beating out Dennis from July 5, 2005. In an average year, the 4th named storm would have occurred by August 23. So, in terms of named storm counts, we're roughly two months ahead of the pace. With that said, there is no correlation between a fast start to the season and the degree of activity of the rest of the season.
No comments:
Post a Comment