Elsa maintains hurricane strength, lashes Florida’s west coast on track for a Wednesday landfall

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Hurricane Elsa is back and is forecast to reach land along the northern Florida Gulf coast by late Wednesday morning.

Hurricane Elsa’s winds were at 75 mph as of 11 p.m. EDT Tuesday, just over the 74-mph minimum threshold for hurricane status.

Elsa will most likely make landfall north of Tampa Bay in the Big Bend region between 8 and 9 a.m. Wednesday, Gov. Ron DeSantis said at a news conference Tuesday night.

A hurricane warning is in effect for west coast of Florida from Egmont Key to the Steinhatchee River in Florida’s Big Bend region, according to the National Hurricane Center.

A tornado watch in effect for South Florida for most of Tuesday expired at 11 p.m. Much of the western and central part of the state is under a tornado watch until 8 a.m. Wednesday, the National Weather Service said.

The possibility for tornadoes across north Florida will continue into Wednesday, the National Hurricane Center said, along with southeast Georgia and the South Carolina Lowcountry before the tornado threat shifts to the eastern Carolinas and far southeast Virginia on Thursday.

Forecasters say Elsa will continue to track to the north and it is expected to move over portions of the west coast of Florida. Hurricane Irma took a similar path in September 2017, according to AccuWeather.

As of 11 p.m., Elsa was 65 miles southwest of Tampa, moving north at 14 mph. Hurricane-force winds extended up to 25 miles from Elsa’s center, the National Hurricane Center said, and tropical-storm force winds extended up to 80 miles from the center.

More than 20 counties along Florida’s west coast are under tropical storm warnings and 12 are under storm surge warnings ahead of Elsa’s arrival, according to DeSantis. A total of 33 counties across the state are under state of emergency orders. Thousands were without power Tuesday night.

The Tampa Bay region will start to see winds and rain from the storm after midnight, DeSantis said. Tampa International Airport suspended commercial operations at 5 p.m. The airport is scheduled to reopen at 10 a.m. Wednesday.

The governor stressed that anywhere east of Elsa’s eye will see some impacts from the storm.

“This is not a time to joy ride. You do have hazardous conditions out there,” DeSantis said Tuesday.

The National Hurricane Center extended tropical storm warnings up to the coast of Georgia from the mouth of St. Mary’s River to Little River Inlet in South Carolina. The Georgia coast is expected to see tropical storm conditions by late Wednesday and possibly into South Carolina by Wednesday night and early Thursday.

Elsa, the earliest-forming fifth storm in recorded history, formed Friday and became the season’s first hurricane before it weakened back to a tropical storm Saturday morning over Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

And it continues to be a record-breaker, according to Dr. Phil Klotzbach, a hurricane expert and research scientist at Colorado State University.

Klotzbach said Tuesday that Elsa now holds the record for the fastest-moving hurricane the tropical Atlantic, and it is also the record-setting eighth-consecutive Atlantic basin hurricane to undergo rapid intensification, which occurs when wind speeds increase by 35 mph or more in a 24-hour period.

“There have been quite a few hurricanes that have been faster moving, but these have been at higher latitudes. Higher latitude hurricanes often move very quickly, as they interact with the jet stream. For example, Hurricane Irene in 1999 was moving at over 60 mph when it was starting to undergo extratropical transition.”

Warm water and low wind shear were the prime components for Elsa’s quick transition from tropical storm to hurricane last Friday when its wind speed went from 50 mph to 85 mph, he said, adding that those same two components led to rapid intensification for last year’s last seven hurricanes.

The list includes Teddy, Gamma, Delta, Epsilon Zeta, Eta and Iota from the record-breaking 2020 season, and now Elsa in 2021.

“The environment last year was generally very conducive for rapid intensification, that is, we had warmer than normal water, especially in the western Atlantic, combined with much lower vertical wind shear than normal — thanks in large part to the moderate La Niña we had last hurricane season,” Klotzbach said in an email.

“Warm waters are critical for rapid intensification, but so is low to moderate vertical wind shear. If the shear is too strong, storms still have a hard time intensifying, even if the waters are extremely warm. Elsa formed over water, which was just slightly warmer than normal, but the shear was much weaker than normal for this time of year.”

A storm surge warning remained in effect from Bonita Beach to the Aucilla River, including Tampa Bay. There is a possibility of life-threatening flooding, from rising water moving inland from the coastline, in the next 24 hours. Elsa’s storm surge was estimated to range from 1 to 5 feet.

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