Hurricane Abby - June 2-13,
1968
An upper level trough over the northwest Caribbean pushed a cold front
into the Florida Straits.
Pressures fell across the western Caribbean on the 1st. A warm
core cyclone developed and moved
northward, up the east side of the upper level trough. The
cyclone moved between Dry Totugas and
Key West on the evening of the 3rd as a minimal hurricane. The
system moved northeast, making
landfall near Punta Gorda on the 4th as a weak system. Exiting
the east coast late on the 4th, Abby
made a loop to the south before moving to the north-northwest up the
northeast Florida coast on the
6th as a tropical storm. Abby helped relieve drought conditions
across Florida caused by the winter/
spring dry season. The system moved inland into the Southeast,
meandering for several days before
moving northeast along the coast of North Carolina and becoming
absorbed by an extratropical
cyclone offshore the northern Mid-Atlantic states. The graphics
below
show the
storm total
rainfall for Abby, using data provided by the National
Climatic Data Center in Asheville,
North Carolina.