...For the latest forecast on Debby...scroll down to Wes's and Fred's blog posts...
Tropical Storm Debby continues to sit fairly still in the NE Gulf this evening, about 120 miles SSE of Panama City, as the sun is setting on it in the satellite picture above. Maximum sustained winds are 60 mph, and the buoy just offshore from Panama City measured wind gust of 43 mph within the last hour or two. Buoys out in the gulf are seeing waves up to 15 feet with this storm.
With the slow movement of the storm, very heavy rain is expected along the Gulf Coast. Here is the latest 5-day rainfall prediction from HPC. Looks like no drought in the FL panhandle for a while.
I have been talking about how tropical storms and hurricanes are driven by warm air aloft, released in thunderstorms (see http://birmingham.raycomweather.com/2012/06/hurricanes-blog-2-how-do-hurricanes-form.html). Check out the map below of 500 mb temps. The warmest temperature, 1 C (34 F), is near the center of the tropical storm. Over most of Alabama, 500 mb temps are around 5 C (41 F), and that is still above normal even for Summer (it was around -9 C, or 16 F, within the past 2 weeks).
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