Tropical Storm Mindy made landfall in Florida Panhandle Wednesday night with 45 mph winds
Tropical Storm Mindy made landfall just after 8 p.m. Wednesday in St. Vincent Island in Florida’s Panhandle.
It came ashore on the barrier island, just south of Panama City, with 45 mph sustained winds. The storm was expected to bring two to four inches of rain to the northern half of the state. By 11 p.m., the storm was moving along the shoreline of Apalachee Bay, according to the National Hurricane Center.
Winds were expected to be strongest in the Panhandle overnight.
As of a 11 p.m. advisory, Mindy was about 35 miles east northeast of Apalachicola and about 35 miles south southwest of Tallahassee. Tropical-storm-force winds extended 45 miles from the center. The tropical storm warning for Florida’s Gulf Coast, west of Indian pass, was canceled as of the 11 p.m. advisory.
What is now Mindy was previously a disorganized cluster of clouds and thunderstorms that spent the last week drifting from the eastern coast of Honduras through the Gulf of Mexico before finally strengthening into the season’s thirteenth tropical storm mere hours before landfall.
The hurricane center is also tracking another disturbance, this time a tropical wave expected to emerge off Africa’s west coast in a couple of days. As of the 11 p.m. update, forecasters gave it a 40% chance of developing further in the next five days and no shot at strengthening in the next two days.
Hurricane Larry also continues to power through the middle of the Atlantic, now as a Category 2 storm with 100 mph winds. Bermuda is under a tropical storm warning, as the wide and powerful storm is expected to sideswipe the island on Thursday before hooking northeast and heading toward Newfoundland.
Miami Herald reporter Carli Teproff contributed to this report.
This story was originally published September 8, 2021 at 8:40 AM.
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