Elsa makes landfall in Florida

Florida seems to have avoided significant weather-related damage or widespread power outages. Elsa briefly increased to hurricane status over the Gulf of Mexico but made landfall as a tropical storm in a sparsely populated county along the northern Gulf Coast on Wednesday. Northern parts of Florida could see heavy rain and gusty wind, and several counties were under tornado warnings on Wednesday morning. Gov. Ron DeSantis said there had been no reports of deaths. Flooding is possible in some parts of Florida, including the Gainesville and Tampa areas.

What’s next? The storm is expected to head through northern Florida and into Georgia, the Carolinas, and Virginia. The National Hurricane Center posted a tropical storm warning for the coast of Brunswick, Ga., predicting sustained winds of up to 50 mph in the southeastern parts of the state. A tropical storm watch was in effect along the coastal areas of North Carolina and Virginia.

Dig deeper: Track the storm’s progress at the National Hurricane Center website.