Hurricane Sally made landfall this morning near Gulf Shores, Alabama as a Category 2 hurricane with winds of 105 mph and even higher gusts at times.
I have been in touch with some friends and family members that live in the Pensacola area and they say that conditions started to get bad around 4 a.m. At their location, they currently don’t have any flooding but the power is out and their house has roof damage.
As the remnants of hurricane Sally move inland and farther to the northeast parts of Alabama and Georgia could see between 6-18” of rainfall. Closer to the coast, a historic rainfall event is underway with up to 15” of rain possible in Mobile and 30” from Gulf Shores to Pensacola.
If you’ve ever visited these areas, you know that they have some of the most beautiful beaches in the world and rely heavily on tourism.
Here’s a sunset photo that I took a few years ago about 25 miles east of Pensacola.
It’s going to take months to repair the damaged homes and for businesses to recover.
The National Hurricane Center advisory takes what’s left of Sally through east Alabama and just south of Atlanta.
While Sally impacts the Gulf coast states and heads toward the Carolinas, the Atlantic basin remains very active.
Over the next five days the main areas of concern will be an area of low pressure in the Gulf of Mexico, Hurricane Teddy and an area of low pressure south of the Cabo Verde Islands.
The NHC is giving the low south of the Cabo Verde islands a 70% chance of development over the next 5 days.
A very close eye will have to be kept on the low in the Gulf of Mexico. It also has a 70% chance of development over the next 5 days and could possibly impact some of the same locations that previously dealt with the rain and wind from early storms this year, like Hanna, Laura and Marco.
Meanwhile, Hurricane Teddy will become a major hurricane (category 3) on Thursday. In the path of Teddy lies Bermuda which was recently slammed by Hurricane Paulette a few days ago.
Bermuda could start to feel the impacts of Hurricane Teddy by the end of the weekend.
Next up on the list is Wilfred. After the list of 21 names for storms is exhausted, the National Hurricane Center will begin to use the Greek alphabet to name any additional storms.