What began just a few short days ago as a Tropical Depression, increased in strength to a Category 1 Hurricane overnight, and has made landfall in Steinhatchee, Florida. Hurricane Debbie may dump up to 30 inches of rain on the southeast this week.
The center of Hurricane Debby made landfall over Florida's Big Bend coast, near Steinhatchee, around 7 a.m. EDT Monday, the National Hurricane Center said. It's forecast to bring potential record-setting rains, catastrophic flooding and life-threatening storm surge as it moves slowly across the northern part of the state before stalling over the coastal regions of Georgia and South Carolina.
The storm made landfall as a Category 1 hurricane about 5 miles west of Steinhatchee and 70 miles southeast of the state capital, Tallahassee, with maximum sustained winds of 80 mph. It was moving north-northeast at 10 mph.
A tornado watch also was in effect for parts of Florida and Georgia.
As of 7:15 a.m., almost 220,000 Florida homes and businesses had no electricity, according to PowerOutage.us.
The Big Bend region in the Florida Panhandle also was hit last year by Hurricane Idalia, which made landfall as a powerful Category 3.
Earlier, Debby's outer bands grazed the west coast of Florida, flooding streets and bringing power outages. Sarasota County officials said most roadways on Siesta Key, a barrier island off the coast of Sarasota, were under water. The hurricane center had predicted the system would strengthen as it curved off the southwest Florida coast, where the water has been extremely warm.
Debby is the fourth named storm of the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season after Tropical Storm Alberto, Hurricane Beryl and Tropical Storm Chris, all of which formed in June.
