Elsa spared the Tampa area of any major damage but the now downgraded tropical storm still brought storm surge, heavy rainfall and high winds across parts of the Florida peninsula. Weather.com reports:

Elsa briefly became a hurricane again Tuesday evening, but then weakened back to tropical storm early this morning. Dry air and wind shear helped erode away the more well-organized core that it briefly developed near its circulation center yesterday.

Wind gusts from 55 to 60 mph have been clocked at Cedar Key, Florida, Wednesday morning with driving rain and water levels rising ahead of a midday high tide.

 

The National Hurricane Center says Elsa is moving into Southern Georgia accompanied by very heavy rains, but it weakened over Northern Florida.

The Tampa Bay Times reports:

Gov. Ron DeSantis said this morning that the storm has thus far been less destructive than he and others expected. ”There’s not been reports of really significant structural damage anywhere in Florida, fortunately,” DeSantis said. “Clearly, this could have been worse from what we were looking at 72 hours ago.” Elsa was downgraded to a tropical storm overnight and currently carries 65 mph maximum sustained winds, DeSantis said. The storm is expected to make landfall in the next few hours near Steinhatchee, in the state’s sparsely populated Big Bend region. The storm could still bring flash flooding and tornadoes as it passes across north and northeast Florida, DeSantis said. ”I ask Floridians to simply be safe and use common sense,” he said.

Tampa International Airport was closed Tuesday night into Wednesday but reopened this morning.

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