Rainfall amounts of 5 to 10 inches, with isolated 15-inch totals, are possible.
As torrents of rain moved ashore the northern Gulf Coast early Saturday, the National Hurricane Center declared Tropical Storm Claudette had formed over southeast Louisiana, the third named storm of the 2021 Atlantic Hurricane Center. The storm has already brought flooding rains, inundating coastal southeast Louisiana, southern Alabama and Mississippi and the Florida Panhandle. It’s next poised to sweep across the Southeast, through central Alabama and Georgia into Sunday and through the Carolinas by Monday, bringing more heavy rain and the possibility of a few tornadoes. Through Saturday afternoon, the Hurricane Center warned of “heavy rainfall and life-threatening flash flooding across coastal Mississippi and Alabama, and the far western Florida Panhandle.” Rainfall amounts of 5 to 10 inches, with isolated 15-inch totals, are possible. Claudette is a minimal tropical storm with maximum sustained winds of 40 mph, having formed about 45 miles southwest of New Orleans around 5 a.m. Saturday. As of 11 a.m. Saturday, it was centered 95 miles west-northwest of Mobile and headed west-northwest at 14 mph. While a low-end tropical storm, it was drawing a tremendous amount of moisture from the Gulf of Mexico inland. In a special bulletin early Saturday morning, the National Weather Service noted rainfall rates as high as 2 to 3.5 inches per hour were occurring in the most intense thunderstorms over coastal Alabama and the western Florida Panhandle, where flash flood warnings were posted. As of late Saturday morning, some of the heaviest rain had progressed into central Alabama from Montgomery to Birmingham.
