Debby's Final Chapter Will Be 'a Dangerous One'

The remnants of Debby picked up the pace Friday, moving north and northeast from the Carolinas and still packing a punch with heavy rains, flash flooding, and the threat of tornadoes. The Mid-Atlantic states and parts of New York and New England will see significant rainfall that could cause dangerous flooding into the weekend, such as on parts of Interstate 95 near bigger cities, said Jon Porter, Accuweather's chief meteorologist. From eastern Virginia up to Vermont there may be an active stretch of tornadoes on Friday, he said. "There will be multiple threats in Debby's final chapter, and it's a dangerous one," he said.

In an update at 5am Eastern, the National Hurricane Center said Debby, now classified as a post-tropical cyclone, is "expected to produce an additional 1 to 3 inches of rainfall with locally higher amounts, across portions of the coastal Carolinas today, with areas of considerable flooding expected." From parts of northern Virginia to upstate New York, "2 to 4 inches of rainfall, with local amounts to 6 inches, are expected through Friday night," the hurricane center said. "This will likely result in areas of considerable flash and urban flooding, as well as river flooding." In parts of northern New England, "1 to 3 inches of rain with locally higher amounts are expected through Friday night," per the NHC.

The hurricane center said the "risk for a couple of tornadoes will extend from eastern North Carolina into Virginia and Maryland early this morning. The threat for tornadoes will shift northward into New Jersey, eastern Pennsylvania, and eastern New York today."

• The already drenched parts of northern Vermont that were hit by flash flooding twice last month were bracing for the possibility of more on Friday, the AP reports. Flooding that hit the northeastern part of the state on July 30 knocked out bridges, destroyed and damaged homes, and washed away roads in the rural town of Lyndon.
• The storm made landfall early Monday on the Gulf Coast of Florida as a Category 1 hurricane. Then, Debby made a second landfall early Thursday in South Carolina as a tropical storm. At least seven people have died related to Debby, including a man found dead Thursday in a home damaged by a tornado in Lucarna, North Carolina.

(More Tropical Storm Debby stories.)