Debby to Become Hurricane as it Heads to Florida's Gulf Coast

(Reuters) - Tropical Storm Debby is expected to strengthen rapidly into a hurricane before making landfall in the Big Bend region of Florida's Gulf Coast, the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) said on Sunday, warning of life-threatening ocean surges. 

The hurricane center forecast life-threatening conditions, including storm surges up to 7 feet (2 meters). As it slowly moves north through the week, the storm may bring "potentially historic rainfall" of between 10 and 20 inches (25-50 cm) and catastrophic flooding to Georgia and South Carolina, it said. 

Preparing for Debby, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis called up 3,000 National Guard troops and placed most of Florida's cities and counties under emergency orders, while evacuations were ordered in parts of the Gulf Coast counties of Pasco, Hernando and Citrus. 

Debby became a tropical storm late on Saturday. As of 11 a.m. EDT (1500 GMT) Debby was about 130 miles (210 km) southwest of Tampa and moving toward the Gulf Coast at 13 mph (20 kph), with maximum sustained winds of 65 mph (100 kph), the NHC said. 

The center of Tropical Storm Debby will move across the eastern Gulf of Mexico through Sunday and reach the Florida Big Bend coast Monday morning, it added. Debby is then expected to move slowly across northern Florida and southern Georgia Monday and Tuesday, it said. 

The storm left Cuba's northern coast on Saturday evening, when it was about 100 miles (160 km) west-southwest of Key West in Florida, the NHC said. Debby is expected to lose some strength after landfall but bring heavy rain as it crosses central Florida out to the Atlantic coast, before crawling up to Savannah, Georgia, and then onward to Charleston, South Carolina, early in the week.