Tropical Storm Debby expected to form this weekend, warnings issued in Florida

Intro you are taking a look at a radar loop of what is now potential tropical Cyclone 4 uh this is a storm that we have been monitoring here at Fox 35 the Fox 35 Storm Team been warning about you warning you about this for days now and the impacts getting ready to be felt here in Florida uh over the weekend good morning to you and welcome to fox35 news plus I am Garrett wymer and we appreciate you joining us on this Friday morning live on Fox 35 Orlando .c the fox35 news app um and on Fox local now just a couple of moments ago uh the National Hurricane Center uh issued an advisory for this uh potential tropical Cyclone 4 uh here is uh where you can see it on uh the map there uh off the coast of Cuba about 90 Mi off the coast of Cuba about 420 mi from Key West now they're saying right now maximum sustained winds 30 mph uh moving West Northwest uh at 16 M an hour now this is a disturbance that's expected to move over Cuba today the National Hurricane Center says cross the straights of Florida on Saturday and then move near or over the West Coast of Florida Saturday night through Sunday night and we expect a number of impacts here in our area and we are going to speak with Fox 35 Storm Team meteorologist Brooks Garner here in just a couple of minutes see he is looking over this advisory and making some uh some graphics and putting some things together and as soon as he uh kind of goes through those things he's going to be joining us here uh to kind of tell us everything we need to know meanwhile today is the day to uh get ready uh and prepare for uh potential rain and uh even uh tornadoes uh which are also possible to see with this storm so today is the day to get National Hurricane Center Advisory ready uh here is actually one of Brooks's Graphics kind of showing what you need to do in kind of that preparation timeline so today the day to top off those uh preparation kits the groceries medications Pet Foods uh things like that today is going to be your day to do that because um uh it's nice out there right now and this it's just going to make it your life a lot easier if that's something that you can do today to go ahead and get ready before this storm hits and Fox 35 Storm Team meteorologist Brooks Garner is here with me now and and Brooks we were just kind of setting it up and and but we now have an advisory from the National Hurricane Center that just dropped in the last five minutes right this is Brandon I was working on this uh just in the last few minutes if you hit the space bar it should uh come up this is now called potential tropical cyclone number four uh we just call it potential tropical system number four uh future Debbie and uh essentially is this lyx are we on lyx one yes okay you know what just can you if you go back to the other source it's it looks like it loaded the wrong graphic actually it's is that links one just check that out one sec it may well anyway I can just tell you it does bring a tropical storm into Florida uh coming our way for uh for Sunday is okay Johnny's in there right now um the uh Johnny are you on link you're on link one okay um here let me just let me just jump out here real quick and see if I can elaborate now trying to yeah so we are trying to get that track so that people can kind of get a little bit of a better of idea um as uh Brooks gets that ready this is going to be the future Debbie as you see uh on the graphic there that is the uh next name um on the list for uh this season so far um and this is something that uh uh is going to be heading our way now just to go back to the a previous Point here uh you can Preparation Timeline kind of see this preparation timeline today the day top off those prep kits get your groceries your medicines your pet food uh also a number of sandbag distribution sites um around the area right now we've seen a number of those uh and so today would be the day to to fill up those sandbags if you need them and uh and do that as well and then tomorrow tie down loose lawn stuff have supplies for the next few days and then all of this preparation so that you can kind of hunker down on Sunday because that's when we're going to be seeing uh the majority of those impacts here in our area all right I got the graphic up and we're ready to show it all right let's let's take a look at that now so uh so the National Hurricane Center issued a a potential tropical cyclone number four track this will be called Debbie if it strengthens into a tropical storm as it's forecast to do right now it's a tropical wave they issue these because well back in the old days you had to wait till it became a tropical depression until they could issue advisories right now they are going to go ahead so people on the Gulf Coast can prepare and expect now a tropical storm Debbie to impact our region directly on Sunday if we can hit the Buton one more time we zoom in I can show you some times perfect okay in Impacts South Florida they've issued um some tropical storm watches and and possibly warnings uh this is just hot off the press right now so I haven't had a chance to to look at it I'm going to look at it right now but bottom line warnings aside we've got according to the National Hurricane Center and according to our computer models a tropical storm heading our way this weekend the impacts here in Central Florida would be felt on Sunday now it's important to note with the cone of uncertainty that two things number one the center of the system may not be in the center of the cone it could track farther west it could track farther east it could track right through Orlando the center of what then will be tropical storm Debbie that is certainly in the cards regardless the impacts will be the same with heavy rain a tornado threat Sunday and what could be some significant flooding around our region with between seven and 15 or more inches of rain hurricane Ian dropped about 17 inches of rain it came in one Fell Swoop each storm is different but we've certainly seen flooding in the past in Florida and we may see a similar situation with this only because we've had so much rain in the last couple of weeks and the water tables are high 8 a.m. w 8 a.m. on Sunday winds would be about 50 mph into Tampa Bay with this orientation sending water up into the bay and some storm surge G to 65 mph by Sunday evening winds up to 65 mil per hour strengthening but then weakening as it enters the Atlantic uh gust could be hurricane Force though uh somewhere near the Nature Coast but not so much in Orlando and Brooks this is is you know this is kind of our first look at at this um but this is looking kind of like just about exactly what you were expecting and kind of talking us through um that's right earlier yeah absolutely uh I I created sort of my own cone if you will cone of uncertainty and uh and in doing so I was able to essentially create create this the same graphic a little bit early so we were able to give you guys some earlier warning on this um the the other thing I i' mentioned is that uh the impacts with a tropical storm like this are often east of the center so don't Focus so much on on the center of the cone in other words you know how like in the current orientation Orlando's on the edge of the cone that doesn't mean Orlando's on the edge of the impacts the impact are going to go straight through to Vero Beach uh it's a really big storm and and there's a lot of lot of rain associated with it and the tornado threat which will extend from roughly the Bahamas all the way west to the to the coastline of Tampa because this whole region will be on the right hand side of the storm um earlier I mentioned the the tropical storm warnings they haven't plotted yet but we've got a tropical storm watch it looks like from the Pasco Hernando County Line um maybe up to the chass of hitka river All the Way South to basically Fort Meers then it becomes a tropical storm warning May meaning tropical storm conditions are expected in red there near Fort Meers down to Marco Island and all the way to the Everglades National Park with a tropical storm watches in effect for the keys so that's all just a heads up so folks there can start doing what they need to do as far as official preparations go the governor yesterday issued a state of emergency for for Florida for counties in Florida with the rain anticipated so even though this is going to come in as a tropical storm I'm not expecting wind to be the legacy of the system for our viewing area it will be the rain and the flooding potential uh we do have a flooding potential that maybe I can jump off here and jump over that graphic flooding potential that could lead to significant totals and we'll start here to show you the future radar here we can Radar yeah Circle through this uh rainfall rates will be anywhere from from 3 in per hour to 6 prow and and just hit hit the space bar there and we we'll go through it yep uh we're looking at uh by Saturday evening scattered thunderstorms developing is the first bands develop a possibility of a tornado threat Saturday night and here's a look at early Sunday morning like 1:00 a.m. middle of the night Saturday night those are going to be some heavy bands of rain a lot of folks out and about doing stuff late on Saturday night they're going to be facing some serious downpours and possible flash flooding if not rain wrap tornadoes going to the next uh time frame there head to Sunday morning that uh possible tropical storm approaching clear water and Tampa bringing with it copious amounts of flooding rain down I4 P County Hillsboro County up through Pasco Hernando and pelis counties not to mention the man County area doto County the watula area Highlands County All the Way South through Sarasota County coco beach look at that at ahead of the main push there there could be some strong storms those could be the storms that spin up tornadoes so remember how the cone kind of ended in Orlando but you can get effects way outside of the cone that's the thing you just got to consider the big picture not exactly where the storm is tra Coco Beach 9:00 a.m. certainly some big storms possible Sunday we'll go through the time period and you can see how the Heavy Rain then starts to rotate into Orlando between 9:00 a.m. and 400 p.m. where we could have several hours maybe 4 to8 hours of rain and it could come down in varying intensities but could dump a ton of rain across the region the exact track of this determines how much rain the exact intensity determines how much rain we don't know that yet best estimate suggest a moderate tropical storm and a lot of rain so let's continue on through the time period you'll see that this goes into Sunday night and Monday and and ultimately the center circulation moves up through St John's County or Flagler County bringing with it the heaviest rain offshore lingering rain to follow but this is where the rubber meets the road it's the rainfall total so let's go to the next graphic just keep on clicking through we could see anywhere between 7 Rainfall and 15 in in that purple color and where you see the white shadings that could be up to 15 plus Ines of rain it's definitely not guarantee at this point there's a lot of what if still it's Friday this comes through on Sunday and a lot can change but it gives you an idea of what the atmosphere may be packing and if we do see 15 to 17 inches of rain in spots we could we could see flooding that resembled that of hurricane Ian back in 2022 it's really tough to compare one storm to another because every storm has its own character you know it's not just the raw numbers of how much rain you get it's how fast it falls does it fall within two hours or does it fall within 12 hours that'll make a difference between how much can seep down into the ground or how much puddles and then you know Drainage Systems can't handle so that's also another consideration I know you had talked before about the potential of It kind of stalling um but our understanding now is with this this kind of latest track it doesn't look like it's going to do that at least well yeah we hope not and and I think the the concern would be once it passes the latitude of about Jacksonville Florida does it slow down does it get blocked by big Bermuda high does it just park out there over the Southeast Atlantic and maybe even come back or does it continue on its Trek and move out of our hair so that would be the big determining Factor it doesn't look like necessarily it's going to stall over our area based on the latest projections so that would be good news as far as we're concerned here because with these rainfall rates if this thing say stalled over Jacksonville or stalled over Okala we'd be looking at uh kind of an unthinkable situation for a lot of communities that are already super low that already almost flood or do flood every time it rains as it is these are are still pretty eye openening totals uh to see right now as far as potential rainfall yeah and looking back at our uh our cone just to give an idea again this was just released for folks just tuning in potential tropical system number four uh is I can help you out here it's going to be a a system which BRS let's see one second Garrett so um potential tropical system number four is uh is expected to be a tropical storm after reaching tropical depression strength tomorrow becoming a tropical storm as soon as 8:00 p.m. tomorrow evening so a fairly rapid intensification now if it slows down it can't be ruled out that this becomes a brief hurricane we'll have to see or if it goes a little bit farther west more time over the warm Waters if it comes Inland a little bit sooner like say it comes Inland around Marco Island or Naples which is certainly possible it would likely be a lower in tropical storm or even maintain its tropical depression status the impacts more we're talking about are that that rainfall and the potential for those tornadoes um more so than just the hurricane winds exactly and and a note about the tornadoes these won't be like the big Midwest tornadoes these would be quick spin-ups where there's very little warning like a band is coming through it's pouring and all a sudden there's a tornado warning and maybe it's on for 10 or 15 minutes and then it goes away um they'll move at like 50 or 60 miles per hour so it's not the kind of thing where you want to go out and try and take photos of them they'll be rain wrapped and they'll be fairly weak about maybe ef0 to ef1 enough to tear down fences toss trampolines take out some trees and maybe some roof damage if you unfortunate enough to have one hit your house but I think the key with any tornado warnings that are issued are if they're issued in your area act fast because you may only have a few seconds before it's actually impending for your location or a few minutes at best all right so what's next for us the the the day ahead here as we expect more uh updates uh on this so so weatherwise today's going to be quiet and it'll be quiet for much of the day tomorrow so any preps you need to do you know as far as talked about it groceries prescriptions all that stuff um today and tomorrow are your days as far as the next thing to watch on this um well we've got to wait for the system to emerge Over The Straits of Florida and at that point develop into a tropical depression that could happen as soon as tonight so we we'd wait on that to have it upgraded to a tropical depression and then uh most likely tomorrow Saturday evening it would be upgraded to a a tropical storm and uh at that point we'd have tropical storm Debbie they might adjust the cone a little bit and new warnings would be issued up and down the uh the coastline right now it's a tropical storm watch for the Tampa Bay Region they could have some storm surge up there if folks are watching from Hillsboro County um places like Bayshore Harbor Island Davis Islands some of the really prone spots could could see a storm surge with this kind of a setup of a couple of feet not enough to cause any kind of Epic flooding but enough certainly where you'd see the bay coming up a lot all right well we will continue to keep an eye on this Brooks we appreciate the breaking down that latest information for us and just to reiterate you know I don't think this is going to be a major wind event for Orlando but I do think that we could have life-threatening flooding on Sunday and what I mean by life-threatening is you don't want to drive through flood waters if you can't tell the depth your car could get stuck and and unfortunately with tropical systems a lot of lost life happens from people trying to drive through flood waters even even more of a reason to to do what you need to do today even tomorrow if you have to so that come Sunday when all of that is coming through you can like you said stay at home stay out of it that's right all right Brooks thanks we are going to take a break here on Fox 35 News plus but we have much more to come uh after this