Tropical Storm Gordon - the first tropical storm to strike the United States this season and this century - lurched ashore along the northern Gulf Coast of Florida yesterday, producing tornado threats and heavy rains, but little in the way of fear among local residents.
The storm already was faltering as it was expected to make landfall yesterday evening near Cedar Key, in a sparsely populated area about 80 miles north-west of Tampa. As the winds fell below 75 m.p.h. late yesterday afternoon, meteorologists downgraded Gordon from a minimal hurricane to a tropical storm. But they cautioned that the main danger was never damaging winds so much as heavy rains - an anticipated 7 to 10 inches through northern Florida - and the potential for widespread flooding.
"It has become a little bit ragged at this point," Mr James Franklin, a hurricane specialist with the National Hurricane Centre in Miami, said late yesterday. "It's primarily a water event, not a wind event, anyway."
That might be good news to drought-stricken areas of northern Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas, as Gordon continues to sweep northward.
The storm, which developed off a tropical wave in the Caribbean, likely caused its most serious damage long before reaching the United States. Ten inches of rain were reported in Cuba; large parts of Cancun, Mexico, were flooded; and in Guatemala, 19 people were killed, apparently in flooding and mudslides. Except for boating people, Gordon's approach seemed to have little effect on residents' activities.