Tropical Storm Debby moved over Georgia overnight and is forecast to slide back into the Atlantic before heading back on shore in the Carolinas, the National Hurricane Center said.
As of 8 p.m. Tuesday, the center of Debby was located about 30 miles southeast of Savannah, Georgia and 85 miles south-southwest of Charleston, South Carolina with maximum sustained winds of 40 mph as it moves east-northeast at 3 mph. Tropical-storm-force winds extend out 205 miles, mostly to the east of the storm.
“A slow motion toward the east and then north is expected through Thursday night,” said NHC senior hurricane specialist Jack Beven. “On the forecast track, the center of Debby is expected to move offshore the coast of Georgia and South Carolina tonight, continue to drift offshore through early Thursday, and then move inland over South Carolina on Thursday morning.”
The storm came ashore as Category 1 Hurricane Debby with sustained winds of 80 mph on Monday morning near Steinhatchee, Florida in the state’s Big Bend region before slowing down and dropping torrents of rain as it made its way across North Florida into Georgia.
“Debby is expected to produce potentially historic rainfall totals of 10 to 20 inches, with maximum amounts of 25 inches, bringing areas of catastrophic flooding across portions of the eastern half of South Carolina and southeast North Carolina through Friday,” Beven said.
Day-long satellite imagery from today of Debby as the storm made landfall in Florida and moved across the northern part of the sunshine state. pic.twitter.com/GjSbmySgwI
— CIRA (@CIRA_CSU) August 6, 2024
Central South Carolina through the mid-Atlantic states and northern New England could get 3 to 6 inches of rain with some areas getting 8 inches through Saturday.
“This rainfall will likely result in areas of considerable flash and urban flooding, with river flooding possible,” Beven said.
Deadly Debby back to tropical storm as it moves inland, but flooding still a threat
A tropical storm warning remains in effect for Altamaha Sound, Georgia to Surf City, North Carolina with a tropical storm watch from north of north of Surf City to Beaufort Inlet, North Carolina. A storm surge watch is in effect from north of the South Santee River, South Carolina to Cape Fear, North Carolina.
“Tropical storm conditions are expected over portions of the tropical storm warning area along the Georgia coast for the next few hours. Tropical storm conditions are expected to continue along the coast of South Carolina within the tropical storm warning area through Thursday night,” Beven said. “Tropical storm conditions are expected within the tropical storm warning area in North Carolina beginning early Wednesday. Tropical Storm conditions are possible within the Tropical Storm Watch area in North Carolina beginning Wednesday.”
The NHC is also continuing to track a system in the Caribbean with a low chance to form into the season’s next tropical depression or storm.
The area associated with a tropical wave with limited showers and thunderstorms is moving across the central Caribbean Sea.
“Any development of this system should be slow to occur while it moves over the western Caribbean Sea and then interacts with Central America through the rest of the week,” forecasters said. “The northern portion of this tropical wave could reach the southwestern Gulf of Mexico over the weekend, where environmental conditions appear marginally favorable for slow development.”
The NHC gives the system a 10% chance of developing in the next two days and 20% in the next seven.
If it were to become a named system, it could become Tropical Storm Ernesto.
Pictures: Hurricane Debby impacts Florida
Hurricane Debby was the second hurricane of the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season and fourth named system overall. It was also the fourth hurricane to hit Florida since 2000 in the month of August following 2004’s Hurricane Charley, 2005’s Katrina and last year’s Hurricane Idalia, which struck just 15 miles north of where Debby made landfall.
Gov. Ron DeSantis said on Monday that four deaths were reported as storm-related in the state while storm-surge flooded coastal cities from Southwest Florida up to the Panhandle as Debby slogged its way north over the weekend and into Monday.
In south Georgia, a 19-year-old man died Monday afternoon when a large tree fell onto a porch at a home in Moultrie,The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.
The state has been recovering from a high of about 300,000 customers without power. As of 8 p.m. Tuesday, just over 52,000 remain without power, according to poweroutage.us.
About 500 people were rescued Monday from flooded homes in Sarasota, Florida, a beach city popular with tourists, the Sarasota Police Department said in a social media post. Just north of Sarasota, officials in Manatee County said in a news release that 186 people were rescued from flood waters.
“Essentially we’ve had twice the amount of the rain that was predicted for us to have,” Sarasota County Fire Chief David Rathbun said on social media.
DeSantis warned that the state could continue to see threats as waterways north of the border fill up and flow south.
“It is a very saturating, wet storm,” he said. “When they crest and the water that’s going to come down from Georgia, it’s just something that we’re going to be on alert for not just throughout today, but for the next week.”
More than 1,600 flights were also canceled nationwide on Monday and more than 550 flights were canceled early Tuesday, many of them to and from Florida airports, according toFlightAware.com.
President Joe Biden approved a request from South Carolina’s governor for an emergency declaration, following his earlier approval of a similar request from Florida. Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp said he has asked Biden to issue a preemptive federal emergency declaration to speed the flow of federal aid to the state.
Vice PresidentKamala Harrispostponed a campaign stop scheduled for Thursday in Savannah.
North Carolina is also under a state of emergency after Gov. Roy Cooper declared it in anexecutive ordersigned Monday. Several areas along the state’s coastline areprone to flooding, such as Wilmington and the Outer Banks, according to the North Carolina Floodplain Mapping Program.
North Carolina and South Carolina have dealt with three catastrophic floods from tropical systems in the past nine years, all causing more than $1 billion in damage.
In 2015, rainfall fed by moisture as Hurricane Joaquin passed well offshore caused massive flooding. In 2016, flooding fromHurricane Matthewcaused 24 deaths in the two states and rivers set record crests. Those records were broken in 2018 withHurricane Florence, which set rainfall records in both Carolinas, flooded many of the same places and was responsible for 42 deaths in North Carolina and nine in South Carolina.
Hurricane season runs from June 1-Nov. 30.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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