Tropical Storm Fred makes landfall in Fla. Panhandle
Forecasters expect 3-foot storm surge
Tropical Storm Fred made landfall in the Florida Panhandle on Monday afternoon, lashing the Gulf Coast with powerful winds that could cause a dangerous storm surge, the National Hurricane Center said.
The storm came ashore near Cape San Blas, Fla., southeast of Panama City, the hurricane center said, and was moving north at 9 mph with maximum sustained winds of 60 mph.
Tropical storm warnings remained in effect along Florida’s Big Bend Coast to the Steinhatchee River, while parts of the Panhandle coastline were under a storm surge warning, meaning that rising water could bring the “danger of life-threatening” flooding in those areas.
“This is a life-threatening situation,” the hurricane center said. “Persons located within these areas should take all necessary actions to protect life and property from rising water.”
Forecasters are also monitoring Tropical Depression Grace, the seventh named storm of the Atlantic season, which formed in the eastern Caribbean on Saturday morning.
Grace was expected to dump enough heavy rain over Haiti on Monday and early Tuesday to cause mudslides and flooding, just days after the country was struck by a 7.2-magnitude earthquake, the hurricane center said.
Meanwhile, the season’s eighth tropical depression strengthened into Tropical Storm Henry on Monday near Bermuda, about 145 miles offshore. A tropical storm watch was in effect for the island as the system’s top winds grew to 40 mph.
Fred is forecast to bring 4-8 inches of rain to the Florida Panhandle, with isolated totals of up to 12 inches. The heavy rainfall could lead to flooding with possible rapid river rises, the center said.
Along parts of the Florida Panhandle coastline, the storm surge could reach 3-5
feet, the center said. Two feet of flowing water is enough to float a vehicle.
According to the National Hurricane Center, Fred’s tropical storm-force winds extended 115 miles from the storm’s center.
“The wind field is pretty large,” Michael Brennan, the branch chief of the center’s hurricane specialist unit, said Monday.
Parts of southeast Alabama through western and northern Georgia could see rainfall totals between 4-8
inches, with isolated totals up to 10 inches, the center said.
Forecasters also noted that tornadoes could form across parts of the Florida Panhandle, southwestern Georgia and southeastern Alabama. The Carolinas and Virginia could face a tornado threat on Tuesday.
Fred formed late Tuesday as the sixth named storm of the 2021 Atlantic hurricane season.
It became a tropical storm just south of Puerto
Rico on Aug. 10. On Wednesday, authorities there said that power outages and flooding had been reported across the island.
The storm made landfall in the Dominican Republic on Wednesday, where heavy rain caused floods in some parts of Santo Domingo and uprooted trees. Fred then brought heavy rain to eastern Cuba and some of the Bahamas on Friday morning before passing near the Florida Keys on Saturday.