Hurricane Dennis made landfall along the Alabama – Florida Panhandle coastline on July 10^th , 2005 at around 1830 Z.  At 19z, mean sea level pressure was estimated at 943 mb with surface layer winds estimated at 105 knots making Dennis a strong Category 3 Hurricane near landfall.  Hurricane Dennis was an expansive storm measuring nearly 400 nautical miles in circumference from west to east at landfall. Heavy rainfall spread across a four-state region from southeastern Mississippi to the Florida Panhandle and the southern half of Georgia.

Initially, the greatest hydrologic concern was along and perhaps 50 miles west of the center’s path, which moved across southwest Alabama and northeast Mississippi into western Tennessee.  Dennis entrained drier air over the western Gulf of Mexico around the south and east side of the storm, inhibiting excessive rainfall in the Florida panhandle and southern Alabama.  Meanwhile, the storm set up a persistent flow of moisture well east of the center, generating 4 to 8 inches of rain over much of western Georgia during afternoon of 10 July into the early morning hours of 11 July.  This set up the areas of greatest flooding in the Chattahoochee and Flint basins over the next several days.  Much of this area received between 3 and 7 inches of rain just 4 days earlier from the remnants of Tropical Storm Cindy, particularly the Chattahoochee River between Vinings and Whitesburg, the Flint River north of Griffin, and the Ocmulgee River north of Jackson.

II.     Pre-existing Conditions

III.    Meteorology

IV.   Precipitation

V.    Stream Levels and Flooding

VI.   SERFC Products

VII.   Other Information