Fred Drenches the Southeast, Unleashing Tornadoes

Tropical Depression Fred moved through the Southeast on Tuesday, bringing with it heavy rains and touching off several tornadoes, one day after it made landfall in the Florida Panhandle.

As of 11 p.m. Eastern time Tuesday, Fred was about 135 miles south-southwest of Charleston, West Virginia, with maximum sustained winds of 30 mph, the National Weather Service said. It was moving north-northeast at 22 mph.

The system was expected to head northeast Wednesday, and then slow down while moving through southern New England on Thursday.

Throughout the night, the Weather Service issued at least 10 tornado warnings in North and South Carolina, meaning that a tornado had been spotted or picked up on a radar.

Parts of those two states and Virginia were under a tornado watch through 2 a.m. Wednesday. A few tornadoes were likely, along with hail, and wind gusts of up to 60 mph, the Weather Service said.

Several tornadoes were reported across the region Tuesday, including in Edgefield, South Carolina, and in Iredell County, North Carolina, about 50 miles north of Charlotte. There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage.

In Greenville County, South Carolina, public school students and teachers were instructed to shelter in place Tuesday afternoon after a tornado warning was issued for the area, local media outlets reported. The warning was later canceled.

The severe weather knocked out power in some areas and caused flight delays across the South, where tornado warnings remained in effect in several states Tuesday evening.

Heavy rain was expected to continue across some parts of the Appalachian Mountains through Thursday, according to the Weather Service, which said there was a risk of landslides in North Carolina and of flash flooding across the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic.

Fred came ashore on Monday near Cape San Blas, Florida, as a tropical storm. President Joe Biden later approved an emergency declaration for 23 Florida counties, and the storm brought flooding to some areas.

But the storm was downgraded to a tropical depression early Tuesday morning, and the National Hurricane Center said that elevated water levels along the coastline were expected to subside after high tide.

Video circulating on social media Monday evening showed heavy flooding in the Southport, Florida, area, about 10 miles north of Panama City. But there did not appear to be significant damage in Florida as of Tuesday morning.

Forecasters are also monitoring Tropical Storm Grace, the seventh named storm of the Atlantic season, which formed in the eastern Caribbean on Saturday morning and is expected to become a hurricane as it approaches Mexico.

Grace, which made landfall in Haiti on Monday as a tropical depression, restrengthened into a tropical storm early Tuesday morning, the National Hurricane Center said. The storm’s heavy rains brought the potential for mudslides and flooding that could hamper recovery efforts from a 7.2-magnitude earthquake that struck the country three days earlier.

Fred formed a week ago as the sixth named storm of the 2021 Atlantic hurricane season. It became a tropical storm just south of Puerto Rico last Tuesday. The next day, the authorities there said that power outages and flooding had been reported across the island.

The storm made landfall in the Dominican Republic on Wednesday, where heavy rain caused floods in some parts of Santo Domingo and uprooted trees. Fred then brought heavy rain to eastern Cuba and some of the Bahamas on Friday morning before passing near the Florida Keys on Saturday. The links between hurricanes and climate change are becoming more apparent. A warming planet can expect to experience stronger hurricanes over time, and a higher incidence of the most powerful storms — though the overall number of storms could drop because factors like stronger wind shear could keep weaker storms from forming.

Hurricanes are also becoming wetter because of more water vapor in the warmer atmosphere; scientists have suggested that storms like Hurricane Harvey in 2017 produced far more rain than they would have without the human effects on climate. Also, rising sea levels are contributing to higher storm surges — the most destructive elements of tropical cyclones.

A major United Nations climate report released last week warned that nations had delayed curbing their fossil-fuel emissions for so long that they could no longer stop global warming from intensifying over the next 30 years, leading to more frequent life-threatening heat waves and severe droughts. Tropical cyclones have most likely become more intense over the past 40 years, the report said, a shift that cannot be explained by natural variability alone.

Ana became the first named storm of the season on May 23, making this the seventh year in a row that a named storm developed in the Atlantic before the official start of the season on June 1.

The most recent named storm in the Atlantic was Hurricane Elsa, in early July. Elsa cut through Cuba and then Florida, eventually making its way into New York City, where heavy rainfall from the storm flooded subway stations and roadways.

In May, scientists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration forecast that there would be 13 to 20 named storms this year, six to 10 of which would be hurricanes, and three to five major hurricanes of Category 3 or higher in the Atlantic. Last week, in a midseason update to the forecast, they continued to warn that this year’s hurricane season would be an above average one, suggesting a busy end to the season.

Matthew Rosencrans of NOAA said that an updated forecast suggested that there would be 15 to 21 named storms, including seven to 10 hurricanes, by the end of the season on Nov. 30.

Last year, there were 30 named storms, including six major hurricanes, forcing meteorologists to exhaust the alphabet for the second time and move to using Greek letters.