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Moving Slowly In Gulf, Tropical Storm Debby Soaks Florida

High winds, high tide strike at the main street of Cedar Key, Fla., as Tropical Storm Debby makes its way across the Gulf of Mexico on Sunday.
Phil Sandlin
/
AP
High winds, high tide strike at the main street of Cedar Key, Fla., as Tropical Storm Debby makes its way across the Gulf of Mexico on Sunday.

Spinning off the coast, Tropical Storm Debby's effects have already been felt from Georgia south to central Florida, where it dumped rain and spawned some isolated tornadoes.

The path — as has been the case with this storm all along — is still unclear, but the National Hurricane Center expects it to move very slowly and make landfall in Florida in he next few days. At one point, the hurricane center had posted warnings over Louisiana. Those have now been discontinued.

Of course, as Weather.com reports, the biggest threat right now is flooding. Here's Weather.com with what they expect in Florida:

"Locally heavy rain and flooding will impact much of Florida and southeast Georgia into Monday. Portions of northern Florida and southeast Georgia could see another 6 to 12 inches of rain (locally 15+ inches possible). ...

"Tropical storm warnings are posted for parts of the Florida Gulf Coast. Tropical-storm force winds (40 mph or higher) are possible in these areas. Storm surge flooding is also a significant threat along the Florida Panhandle coast and the western coast of Florida since Debby's circulation is embedded in a rather large wind field."

The AP reports that St. George Island "has been closed as the storm looms off Florida's Gulf Coast," and power is already out on the island and could be out for days.

Update at 1:39 p.m. ET. State Of Emergency:

Gov. Rick Scott has declared a statewide state of emergency, as the storm crawls its way toward Florida.

The AP reports that one man is missing, thought to have been caught up in the rough surf in Alabama.

Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Eyder Peralta is NPR's East Africa correspondent based in Nairobi, Kenya.