2 Dead After Tropical Depression Claudette Lashes the South

Tropical Depression Claudette, which was blamed for the deaths of two people in Alabama on Saturday night, could be upgraded to a tropical storm on Sunday as it heads for the Carolinas, forecasters said.

A tropical storm warning was in effect on Sunday afternoon for parts of North Carolina, and the storm was expected to strengthen before it move out over the Atlantic Ocean, the National Hurricane Center said.

Tornadoes were possible in the central and eastern Carolinas, with winds expected to reach up to 30 miles per hour, the center said. Rainfall totals, it said, could reach 2 to 4 inches by Sunday evening.

A man in his early 20s and his 3-year-old son were killed on Saturday night in Tuscaloosa County, Ala., after a tree fell on their mobile home, said Nick Lolley, the director of the Tuscaloosa County Emergency Management Agency.

“Claudette is forecast to become a tropical storm again late tonight or early Monday over eastern North Carolina,” the center said on Sunday.

Claudette is the third named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season. It formed in the Gulf of Mexico and unleashed up to 15 inches of rain on Saturday in southeastern Louisiana, southern Mississippi, southern Alabama and the western Florida Panhandle, forecasters said.

The tropical depression was lashing an area near Athens, Ga., about 70 miles east of Atlanta, around 2 p.m.

Claudette was expected to produce 3 to 6 inches of additional rainfall across eastern Alabama, northern Georgia, the Florida Panhandle and the Carolinas, the center said. There may be flash flooding in some areas, the center said.

When the storm reaches the Carolinas, some coastal areas can expect floods moving in from the shore, forecasters said.

“The combination of storm surge and the tide will cause normally dry areas near the coast to be flooded by rising waters moving inland,” the center said.

Claudette is expected to weaken to a post-tropical cyclone by Tuesday night.

While the 2021 Atlantic hurricane season is just getting underway, many residents along the Gulf Coast are still recovering from a string of storms that battered the region last summer and fall.

Seven named storms thrashed the Gulf Coast in 2020, including Eta, which slammed Florida twice, leaving tens of thousands without electricity and flooding beach communities.

Louisiana, one of the hardest-hit states, had at least five storms, including Zeta and Hurricane Laura, which made landfall on the state’s coast as a Category 4 storm with 150-mile-an-hour winds, destroying office buildings, a sky bridge, trees and power lines. The storm was also responsible for at least six deaths in the state.

In late May, a subtropical storm named Ana developed northeast of Bermuda, becoming the first named storm of the current hurricane season.

It was the seventh year in a row that a named storm developed in the Atlantic before the official start of the season on June 1. Ana was followed by Bill, which formed hundreds of miles off the coast of North Carolina last week and became a tropical storm before being downgraded as it remained at sea.

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 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.

It was the highest number of storms on record, surpassing the 28 from 2005, and included the second-highest number of hurricanes on record.

Hurricanes have become increasingly dangerous and destructive with each passing season.

Researchers have found that climate change has produced storms that are more powerful and have heavier rain. The storms also have a tendency to dawdle and meander. A combination of rising seas and slower storms also make for higher and more destructive storm surges.

Reporting was contributed by Maria Cramer, Johnny Diaz, Mike Ives, Alyssa Lukpat and Eduardo Medina.