The National Hurricane Center (NHC) in the United States announced on Sunday night (August 4) that Debby has intensified into an official hurricane and is set to make landfall in the Big Bend area of the Gulf of Mexico coast in Florida on Monday afternoon. The NHC warned that the hurricane’s storm surge could pose a threat to life.
Debby is the fourth named storm of the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season. As of 2:00 AM Eastern Time on Monday, Debby’s maximum sustained winds have reached 80 miles per hour (129 kilometers per hour) and are expected to continue to strengthen overnight. The storm’s center is currently located at 29.1°N, 83.8°W, moving northward at a speed of 12 miles per hour.
It is forecasted that on Monday and Tuesday, Debby’s forward speed will gradually decrease, and it will turn northeast and eastward.
According to predictions, the storm center is expected to reach the coast of the Big Bend area in Florida on Monday morning. Debby is projected to move slowly across northern Florida and southern Georgia on Monday and Tuesday, reaching the coast of Georgia by Tuesday evening.
The NHC predicts that storm surges of up to 10 feet (about 3 meters) may occur in some coastal areas along the Gulf of Mexico in Florida, posing a life-threatening situation.
The center stated that as the storm slowly moves northward this week, it could bring “historic rainfall” to Georgia and South Carolina, with estimated rainfall amounts between 10 to 20 inches (25 to 50 centimeters), leading to catastrophic flooding.
By Friday morning, localized areas could receive up to 30 inches of accumulated rainfall.
Deputy Director of the Hurricane Center, Jamie Rhome, stated, “It’s moving slowly, and it will bring historic rainfall, potentially exceeding 20 inches. This will result in catastrophic flooding.”
This storm shares some similarities with Hurricane Harvey in August 2017, which impacted Corpus Christi, Texas. Despite weakening to a tropical storm as it moved inland, Harvey lingered over the state, dumping about 50 inches of rain on Houston.
Harvey is considered one of the rainiest storms in U.S. history, causing floods in the Houston metropolitan area, leading to over 100 deaths and $125 billion in losses.
Rhome mentioned that unusually warm sea temperatures have fueled the Debby storm. Climate scientists believe that increased ocean temperatures can make storms larger and more destructive.
To prepare for Hurricane Debby, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis mobilized 3,000 National Guard troops and issued emergency orders for most counties in the state, including mandatory evacuations for parts of Citrus, Dixie, Franklin, Levy, and Wakulla counties along the Gulf coast.
DeSantis mentioned that over 17,000 power line workers and other utility workers are ready to restore power.
Ahead of the storm, governors of Georgia and South Carolina also declared a state of emergency.
The storm is expected to weaken slightly after landfall but will bring heavy rain as it crosses central Florida and reaches the Atlantic coast, then climbs to Savannah in Georgia this week before continuing to Charleston in South Carolina, where it is predicted to linger, causing catastrophic rainfall.
The last hurricane to directly hit the Big Bend area was Idalia in August 2023, landing as a Category 3 hurricane with winds exceeding 125 miles per hour. It was estimated that the storm caused $3.5 billion in damages.