Northern Florida braces for Hurricane Debby

Northern Florida residents are bracing for Hurricane Debby to make landfall in the Big Bend area and are expecting heavy rainfall and flooding. 

Debby was packing sustained maximum winds of 80 mph, with stronger gusts. At 4am EDT, it was about 40 miles west-northwest of Cedar Key, 80 miles south-southeast of Tallahassee, Florida, and was moving to the north-northeast at 12 mph.

The storm was forecast to reach 85 mph before it slams into the coast on Monday morning.

Debby's hurricane-force winds extended outward up to 45 miles from the centre and tropical-storm-force winds stretched for up to 140 miles, according to the hurricane centre. 

CNN said St Petersburg has seen over a month’s worth of rainfall — 9.89 inches — in the last 48 hours, eclipsing its August average of 8.39 inches. More than 11 inches of rain have been reported in Pinellas Park and Palm Harbor.

The heavy rainfall was expected to result in areas of "catastrophic flooding" in northern and central Florida. It said there was a danger of 6 to 10 feet of storm surge along portions of the Florida Gulf Coast. 

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