The Tropical Storm Claudette made it landfall early Saturday after moving along the Gulf Coast. Formed on Saturday morning, the storm is expected to calm down by Saturday evening. However, the storm continues to appear drenching the coastal areas of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama with heavy rain.
As a result, there is a greater threat of flash floods, high winds and possible tornadoes.
The appearance of Tropical Storm Claudette was declared the National Hurricane Center by 4 am. CT Saturday. As reported, at the time of its formation, the storm was centered southwest of New Orleans with winds at speed 45 mph.
The storm made its landfall in southeast Louisiana just before 7 a.m. CT Saturday, and brought with it heavy rains and tropical storm-force winds, which moved at a speed of 39 mph.
According to the weather service, the storm is expected to produce heavy rain of 5 to 10 inches with “isolated maximum amounts of 15 inches across portions of the Central Gulf Coast”. Life-threatening flash floods are also expected across coastal Mississippi and Alabama and the far western Florida Panhandle.
As reported by the poweroutage.us, the storm Claudette led to around 13,000 outages total across Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.
Claudette is reportedly expected to weaken to a tropical depression by late Saturday, which will become a tropical storm again while moving across the Carolinas by Sunday night or early Monday.
https://twitter.com/MyRadarWX/status/1406287299315384322?s=20
MyRadar Weather recently updated about the situation via Twitter. The update reads, “Claudette continues to move quickly into the southern parts of Mississippi and Alabama. The winds are weakening but heavy pockets of rain will be a big problem through this weekend! Meteorologist @JamieWeatherguy will keep a close eye on any changes!
The storm created a havoc in Louisiana which caused multiple deaths. Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards had already declared a state of emergency on Thursday and offered state resources to aid in storm response efforts.
In Florida, Escambia and Santa Rosa counties braced for the disaster, but the houses have suffered damage as complaints of torn roof surfaced. Sarah Whitfield, spokeswoman for Santa Rosa County said, “Nobody’s hurt… We’re just thankful it happened after sunrise, not overnight as people slept.”