United States

By Alex Sosnowski, Expert Senior Meteorologist

June 27, 2012; 9:16 PM

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Debby is now offshore of the Florida Atlantic coast after a legacy of flooding rainfall in part of the Deep South.

This is certainly good news as a sweep of dry air from the north has ended the flooding rain in northern Florida and southern Georgia.

The storm was downgraded to a tropical depression Tuesday evening after making landfall near Steinhatchee, Fla.

Since its start, Debby produced tremendous rainfall in part of the Deep South. Indications are the storm will continue its flooding legacy until the very end.

Over a foot of rain has fallen in portions of Florida the past several of days. There have been unofficial amounts up to two feet in the Curtis Mill, Fla. area. Sanborn, Fla., received 20.10 inches of rain in 24 hours.

During Sunday into Monday, north-central Florida was clobbered by torrential rain. During Monday into Tuesday, northern Florida, including part of the panhandle, was inundated. During Tuesday afternoon and evening, northeastern Florida and southeastern Georgia were hit hard.

Bands of showers and thunderstorms will continue to affect South Florida, the Keys and part of the Bahamas into Wednesday evening. A few of the thunderstorms can produce urban and low-lying area flooding.

Debby also had a legacy of spawning tornadoes early on, but fortunately with the storm now rather disorganized and moving away, that threat has diminished significantly and will continue to do so over the next day.

As Debby swings hundreds of miles into the Atlantic, look for dry air to sweep across much of South Florida as well Thursday.

There appears to be a little less danger of Debby rapidly strengthening upon reaching the Gulf Stream offshore. However, some regain of strength will occur as the storm moves farther out to sea.

How quickly the ramp-up occurs will determine how rough surf conditions will get for a time along the southern Atlantic Seaboard from West Palm Beach to Cape Hatteras late in the week into the first part of the weekend.

Debby will affect Bermuda later Friday into Saturday with rough seas, stiff winds and squalls.

As Debby heads out to sea, heat will expand from the middle of the nation reaching much of the East Coast.

A piece of Debby's moisture did find its way well to the north, in Maine of all places. As a scoop of air high in the atmosphere dipped southward into the Eastern states, it was able to briefly shear off some moisture in the form of drenching rain.

That rain is contributing to flooding problems in the Pine Tree State through Wednesday.