Tropical Storm Andrea is set to hit the southeastern U.S. state of Florida with torrential rain as it prepares to make landfall Thursday. The first named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season made its debut Wednesday by pounding Cuba with heavy downpours. Heavy rain was pouring across much of Florida early Thursday as the storm headed toward the state' western coast and a new tropical-storm warning was issued for parts of the U.S. east coast. At 1200 GMT Thursday, Andrea was 260 kilometers west of Tampa, Florida and was headed north-northeast at 23 kilometers per hour (kph), said the Miami-based National Hurricane Center (NHC). The center of the storm is expected to reach northwestern Florida late Thursday before moving across southern Georgia and moving up the east coast on Friday and Saturday. Forecasters do not expect Andrea to strengthen to a hurricane, which would require sustained winds of at least 119 kph. Early Thursday, the storm had top winds of 97 kph. The greatest danger associated with Andrea is water, from both ocean storm surge and rain. The storm is expected to drop 7.5 to 15 centimeters of ran over much of Florida and southeastern Georgia and as much as 20 centimeters in some areas. The eastern parts of North and South Carolina could see up to 10 centimeters of rain, the NHC said. "The combination of a storm surge and the tide will cause normally dry areas near the coast to be flooded by rising waters," the NHC warned.
