Officials on Sunday warned that the cyclone, which is now located about 460 miles (735 kilometers) southwest of Tampa, Florida, had strengthened from a tropical depression into a tropical storm.
Advertisement
The hurricane center upgraded the storm at 4:30 p.m. CDT after getting reports of tropical-storm force winds from an Air Force Reserve Unit Hurricane Hunter aircraft.
It is the latest in a series of severe whether events across the country, from record-breaking heat in the West, flooding in Texas and storms that are expected to cause problems in the nation’s capital and mid-Atlantic region.
Weather officials also warned boaters, surfers and swimmers tempted by the high, pounding surfs and rough waves to avoid getting in the water.
Several counties in the Tampa Bay area made sandbags available throughout the weekend for residents to prepare for potential flooding, Fox 13 reported.
“As we continue to closely monitor this tropical depression, Floridians should remain vigilant and have an emergency plan for their families and businesses in place today”, said Florida Governor Rick Scott in a statement.
By early evening on Sunday, heavy rainfall from Colin was spreading northward toward Florida, the hurricane centre said.
In its wake, Army officials investigated a training exercise that went horribly wrong at Fort Hood, leading to the deaths of nine soldiers whose vehicle was swept into rushing waters of a rain-swollen creek. Three others soldiers survived and have returned to duty. Maximum sustained winds are near 35 miles per hour (55 kph). No one was injured by the EF0 tornado, which is the weakest tornado designation the weather service assigns. “Hopefully we won’t have any significant issues here, but we can have some storm surge, some rain, tornados and some flooding”. The rain is expected to diminish this week and dry out areas in southeast Texas, where officials gave evacuation order to about 2,000 homes.
Advertisement
There’s no change in the track forecast reasoning from earlier in the day, he said, and the storm should move north-northeast to northeast over the next two days, nudged along by a mid-level low pressure system draped over the western and northern Gulf of Mexico and a ridge of high pressure over the subtropical western Atlantic Ocean.
