Is it a hurricane or a storm?

Tropical storm Barry has been up and down, changing its title multiple times.

On July 10 a tropical storm had hit in the Gulf of Mexico and became the second named tropical storm of the season. Three days later on July 13, the tropical storm became the first hurricane of the season. By that afternoon however, Barry downgraded back to a tropical storm.

With maximum 1-minute sustained winds of 75 mph the now hurricane made landfall on Marsh Island and Intracoastal City, Louisiana as a category 1 hurricane. Louisiana had a rainfall of 23.43 inches in the town of Ragley.

The storm was not as bad as anticipated.The storm was expected to drop 15-20 inches of rain to southeast Louisiana and southwest Mississippi. But, most parts of the Gulf Coast received only two to six inches of rain. However, over 90,000 people remained without power on Sunday and flooding caused damaged homes.

Barry also affected parts of Florida. In Fort Walton on Okaloosa Island, the storm caused the waters to be very dangerous calling for double red flags, which means no swimming. The storm even brought in sharks very close to the shore. Sophomore Casey Harbolt was vacationing in Fort Walton when all of this was going on. He said, “It was pretty wild to see a shark up so close to the shore like that. Just earlier that day people were out in the ocean where the sharks were hanging out.”

Tropical storm Barry continues to bring rainfall to places like Tennessee and Kentucky. This week, Mt. Washington is expected to get its share of Barry.