TROPICAL STORM JULIA FIRST TO FORM OVER LAND IN FLA.
Tropical Storm Julia earned the distinction late Tuesday of becoming the first such system on record to form over land in Florida.
It also is the first to form over land anywhere in the USA in nearly three decades.
The last storm to do so was Tropical Storm Beryl, which developed over southeastern Louisiana in 1988, according to meteorologist Phil Klotzbach of Colorado State University.
In Julia’s case, while the center of the storm technically formed over land, most of the storm’s heavy rain and thunderstorms were offshore, Klotzbach said.