Tropical Storm Gordon Making Landfall Near Pascagoula

As I am typing this post, Tropical Storm Gordon is making landfall very close to the Alabama/Mississippi state line very close to Pascagoula. The good news is that strengthening did not occur between the last advisory at 7:00 PM and the latest one just before landfall at 10:00 PM. Maximum sustained winds continue to be around 70 MPH with a few gusts as high as 85 MPH.

Flash Flood Warnings are already in effect for parts of Mobile and Baldwin counties, including Dauphin Island, Fort Morgan, Gulf Shores, and Orange Beach. Those warnings continue eastward over into Escambia and Santa Rosa counties in Florida. The tornado warning that was in effect for portions of Santa Rosa County was cancelled.

We’ve had one report of a confirmed tornado in Santa Rosa County near the Pea Ridge community, but details on damage will be coming in later as the weather conditions improve.

Unfortunately, we already have a report of a fatality due to Gordon. A tree fell on a mobile home located in Escambia County in Florida, with entrapment and a confirmed pediatric death by the local EMS crew.

We already have over 16,000 Alabama Power customers without power mostly in Mobile County, mainly in and around Dauphin Island, Bayou La Batre, Theodore, Downtown Mobile, and West Mobile. Gulf Power is reporting at least 12,000 without power across the Florida Panhandle.

As far as the rest of the late night and into the overnight hours, the center of Gordon will continue to move on a northwestern trek across the southeastern parts of Mississippi, bringing very heavy rains and strong winds to the southwestern portions of Alabama and to southeastern Mississippi.

A few brief spin-up tornadoes may be possible to the east and northeast of the center of circulation and the SPC has portions of southeastern Mississippi, southwestern Mississippi, and western Florida in a Slight Risk of severe weather. Along with the tornado threat, the main threat will be from damaging winds associated with Gordon.

The larger story will be from the expected heavy rainfall associated with Gordon. We could see rainfall totals as high as 4-8 inches over western Florida, southwestern Alabama, and southeastern Mississippi over the next 12-24 hours, with some localized amounts approaching 10-12 inches.

I’ll be up just in case we have any warnings in Central Alabama during the overnight hours. It would be very unlikely that we would get a warning, but not completely impossible.

Category: Alabama's Weather, ALL POSTS