By Rich McKay
(Reuters) -A tropical storm with near hurricane strength winds and life threatening storm surges is expected to crash into Florida’s Big Bend area on the northern Gulf Coast shoreline by Monday morning, the National Hurricane Center said.
The storm was still a broad, sloppy system on Saturday, shoving off Cuba’s northern coast and whipping up rain squalls, winds of 40-mph and surging tides in Key West, Florida, on Saturday.
It’s expected to turn into a tropical storm, named Debby, early on Sunday with near hurricane force winds around 70 mph (110 kph), forecasters said.
“By Sunday evening it is predicted to still be over Gulf waters and is expected to make landfall early Monday morning,” said National Hurricane Center Director Michael Brennan at a media briefing on Saturday.
“Time to make your preparations in case of evacuations is now,” Brennan said. “Prepare for possible hurricane conditions late Sunday night into Monday morning.”
It could dump 15 inches of rain and bring “life threatening” storm surges of 3-to-5 feet above ground level along the coasts, Brennan said, before the storm cuts across Central Florida and aims up to Savannah, Georgia, and then toward Charleston, South Carolina.
Powerful ocean surges are forecast for Bonita Beach northward to Tampa Bay. Those surges could send powerful sea waves further inland than normal, damaging structures and threatening anyone in their path.
Parts of three Gulf Coast Florida counties, Pasco, Hernando and Citrus, have issued mandatory or voluntary evacuation orders on Saturday.
A tropical storm warning is in effect for extreme southern Florida and stretching as far north as the Fort Myers area, which was crushed by Hurricane Ian in 2022.
Governor Ron DeSantis has put most of the state’s cities and counties under emergency orders ahead of the expected landfall.
U.S. forecasters expect a large number of Atlantic hurricanes to form in the 2024 season, which began June 1, with four to seven major hurricanes forming out of 25 named storms. That is more than the record-breaking 2005 season that spawned hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
Only one hurricane, Beryl, has formed in the Atlantic so far this year. The earliest Category 5 storm on record, it ravaged the Caribbean and Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula before rolling up the Gulf Coast of Texas as a Category 1 storm, with winds up to 95 mph.
The storm is expected to follow a similar track as the deadly 2022 Hurricane Ian, which killed at least 103 in Florida and did billions of dollars in damage as it made its way along the Gulf Coast.
(Reporting by Rich McKay in Atlanta; Additional reporting by Brad Brooks in Colorado; Editing by William Mallard and Nick Zieminski)
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