MIAMI _ Squally weather started lashing Florida's Panhandle Tuesday morning as Tropical Storm Gordon headed toward the northern Gulf Coast, where it's due to make landfall Tuesday night.
In an 11 a.m. EDT advisory, National Hurricane Center forecasters said the unexpected Labor Day storm should strengthen through the day, making Gordon a weak hurricane when it makes landfall along the central coast between Alabama and Louisiana. Storm surge warnings and watches extended across most of the northern Gulf Coast early Tuesday, along with hurricane and tropical storm warnings.
Gordon was located about 145 miles east-southeast of the mouth of the Mississippi, moving west-northwest at 15 mph Tuesday morning, with sustained winds of 65 mph. Tropical storm force winds extend 80 miles from Gordon's center.
As it crosses the Gulf Tuesday, forecasters say the storm will encounter some upper level wind shear, the hurricane-smothering atmospheric winds that up to now have helped keep the season in check. However, those winds should not be strong enough to keep the storm from intensifying to a Category 1 hurricane. It's expected to dump heavy rain, with 4 to 8 inches between the western end of the Panhandle, southwest Alabama and southern and central Mississippi. Some areas could get as much as 12 inches.
Storm surge could also reach between 3 and 5 feet in parts of Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana.
Throughout the weekend, Gordon defied forecasts by strengthening more rapidly than expected. Saturday morning, forecasters predicted the system would not form until it passed over Florida and entered the Gulf. By Saturday evening, however, it had blossomed into a depression and by Sunday morning intensified to a Tropical Storm about 10 miles west of Key Largo.
"Gladly watching Gordon depart Florida," forecaster Eric Blake tweeted late Monday. "Not too often you see a TS spin up that close to land on radar, basically unexpected."
The storm dumped heavy rain through must of the day, drenching parts of South Florida with up to 5 inches. The National Weather Service's Miami office ended a flood watch at midnight, but continued to warn Tuesday morning that a high risk of rip currents remained along the east coast, from Miami to Jupiter.
Farther away, more than 1,200 miles from the Lesser Antilles, Florence became the third hurricane of the season on Tuesday, with sustained winds of 75 mph. The compact storm, with winds extending just 15 miles from the center, is expected to begin weakening Wednesday and continue to fizzle through Friday before regaining intensity later in the weekend.
A third system, a tropical wave just east of the Cape Verde Islands off the coast of Africa, is also teeing up and should become a tropical depression by the end of the week or over the weekend. Forecasters gave the system a 70 percent chance of forming over five days as it moves slowly west.
