Fla. braces for tropical storm conditions
Forecast says Fred may regain strength as soon as Saturday
Downgraded to a tropical depression, Fred swirled between eastern Cuba and the southeastern Bahamas as it made its way toward Florida for a possible weekend landfall.
After a quiet month in the Atlantic hurricane season, Fred is the first named storm in August. The system drenched the Dominican Republic on Wednesday, knocking out power for hundreds of thousands and threatening mudslides.
The storm weakened as it moved through the Dominican Republic and Haiti, as expected, but it was forecast to regain strength as it moved over water and slows over the next couple of days, forecasters said.
Winds and rain could come to Florida as soon as Friday. Tropical storm conditions were expected by Saturday, and multiple landfalls were possible in the state, according to the National Weather Service.
“These conditions are expected to spread northward along portions of the Florida west coast and the Florida Panhandle through Monday, with another landfall in the Panhandle on Monday,” said Dennis Feltgen, a National Hurricane Center meteorologist.
The storm was not expected to reach hurricane strength.
A tropical storm watch was expected for portions of the Florida Keys and the southern Florida Peninsula, the hurricane center said.
Calling the storm “poorly organized,” the center said Fred was moving west-northwest at 14 mph with maximum sustained winds of 35 mph.
On Tuesday, Fred reached tropical storm status before it brought heavy rains and power outages to Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
About 13,000 customers were without power in Puerto Rico. Gov. Pedro Pierluisi had closed government agencies on Tuesday, and some gas stations shut down after running out of fuel.
Power outages were more widespread in the Dominican Republic: About 300,000 customers were in the dark. Flooding caused part of an aqueduct system to shut down, government officials said, and people in low-lying areas of Santo Domingo were urged to evacuate. Mudslides were still a risk, forecasters warned.
Heavy rains were expected in the eastern Bahamas, Turks and Caicos and Cuba, and some areas of those islands could get up to 5 inches. Parts of the Bahamas could see up to 8 inches.
Flooding is also a risk in Florida, which could see 3 to 5 inches of rain through Monday in the Keys and South Florida, the Hurricane Center said.
The Hurricane Center’s official path places Fred over the eastern Gulf of Mexico after passing through the Florida Keys. That would mean additional strengthening, and Fred could make a final landfall in the Big Bend region or Panhandle late in the weekend or early next week. But earlier landfalls would weaken the storm, forecasters said.
Gov. Ron DeSantis urged Floridians on Wednesday to watch for updates on Fred’s track but said it remained too early to determine the threat to the state.
Fred is the sixth named storm of the 2021 hurricane season and first in August, breaking a monthlong lull after Hurricane Elsa formed July 9.
Elsewhere in the tropics, another system has a 70% chance of development over the next five days as it spins between Africa and the Caribbean. If the system becomes a named storm, it would be Grace.