PENSACOLA BEACH, Fla. — Brewing in the Gulf of Mexico, Tropical Storm Claudette was bringing heavy rain Sunday to the Florida Panhandle and was likely to become the first tropical storm to strike the U.S. mainland this year.
Claudette had winds of at least 50 mph but was not expected to cause significant flooding or wind damage.
Lurking more ominously was Tropical Storm Bill, which quickly was turning into a powerful storm over warm waters in the open Atlantic, with sustained winds of 65 mph.
Ana, a tropical storm that had also been churning in the Atlantic, weakened to a depression.
Skies over Florida clouded, and bands of intermittent heavy rain moved onshore ahead of the storm, but the Panhandle was largely calm Sunday.
Condominiums on Pensacola Beach warned residents to bring balcony furniture indoors with winds anticipated to strengthen throughout the evening. A trickle of cars and sport utility vehicles with surfboards on top headed east along the Panhandle as surfers hoped to catch waves whipped up by Claudette.
On Pensacola Beach, the National Park Service closed low-lying roads that connect the restaurants and hotels to the undeveloped National Seashore and historic Fort Pickens Fort. The Park Service said campers would be ordered to leave the area because of the likelihood of road flooding.
Rainfall of 3 to 6 inches was expected, with isolated areas getting up to 10 inches along the Panhandle, the Big Bend region, central and southern Alabama and extreme southwestern Georgia, forecasters said.
“We may see some heavy rains as a result, but we don’t expect any high winds or coastal flooding,” said John Dosh, Emergency Management manager. “This event is a good example of how quickly a tropical storm can develop. We won’t always have a lot of warning.”
At 8 p.m. EDT, Claudette was about 55 miles west of Apalachicola and moving northwest near 12 mph. Its center was expected to move onshore today along the northern Gulf Coast.
Despite the storms, a warmer weather pattern called El Niño over the Pacific Ocean is generally expected to damp the formation of tropical storms in the Caribbean and Atlantic this year, said Brian Daly, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Mobile, Ala.
