Tropical Storm Debby has been upgraded to a Category 1 hurricane by the National Hurricane Center and remains on a collision course with the coast of Florida.
The agency issued a storm warning at 11 p.m. warning that the hurricane has winds of 75 miles per hour, posing a “major threat of flooding” to the southeastern United States this week.
A hurricane warning is now in effect for the Gulf Coast of Florida from the Suwannee River to the Ochlockonee River.
Hurricane Debby is likely to threaten flooding in parts of Florida, but the exact timing of the rains has not yet been determined.
The hurricane is expected to make landfall at 8 a.m. Monday in Florida’s Big Bend, a region of swamps and forests that also contains Tallahassee, a city of more than 200,000 people.
“Debby is expected to move slowly across northern Florida and southern Georgia on Monday and Tuesday, and near the Georgia coast by Tuesday night,” the advisory said.
This weather projection shows where Hurricane Debby will make landfall. By 8 a.m. Monday, its winds will have reached 53 mph (85 kph) when it hits Florida’s Big Bend region, which includes Tallahassee.
The hurricane is expected to dump nearly 2 feet of rain in parts of Georgia and South Carolina by midweek.
Specifically, the cities of Savannah, Georgia, and Charleston, South Carolina, could be hit by a month’s worth of rain in a single day, and perhaps even a typical summer’s worth of rain over the course of the storm. ABC7 reported.