Hurricane Nicole Tracker as 'Dangerous' Storm Makes Landfall in Florida

More than 100,000 Florida homes and businesses are without power after Hurricane Nicole made landfall along the east coast of Florida early Thursday.

Nicole arrived as a Category 1 hurricane on North Hutchinson Island, just south of Vero Beach, with maximum sustained winds of 75 miles per hour, the Miami-based National Hurricane Center (NHC) said.

At around 4 a.m. EST, the center reported Nicole was now a "large" tropical storm with maximum sustained winds at nearly 70 miles per hour, centered over east-central Florida and moving west-northwest at nearly 14 miles per hour.

"A dangerous storm surge is expected" along parts of the coast of Florida and Georgia along with "large and damaging" waves, the NHC warned in a bulletin. Tropical storm warnings are in place from near Boca Raton, Florida, to halfway up the South Carolina coast.

Hurricane Nicole comes just weeks after Hurricane Ian devastated Florida communities after making landfall as a Category 4 storm on September 28, killing over 100 people and leaving a trail of destruction estimated to cost as much as $47 billion to repair.

According to the NHC, tornadoes are possible on Thursday morning over parts of
coastal Florida.

The center said Nicole is expected to weaken further while moving across Florida and the southeastern United States and is likely to become a tropical depression over Georgia on Thursday night or early Friday.

Videos on social media showed Nicole buffeting Florida with heavy rain and strong winds, with flooding seen around parts of the state. One clip showed sea walls destroyed and a beach safety building collapsed into the ocean around Daytona Beach.

Meanwhile, more than 100,000 customers were without power in Florida by about 5:30 a.m. local time, according to utility tracker poweroutages.us, including more than 55,000 in Brevard County alone.

At a news conference in Tallahassee on Wednesday, Gov. Ron DeSantis said that winds were the biggest concern and that significant power outages could occur. He said 16,000 linemen were on standby to restore power, as well as 600 guardsmen and seven search and rescue teams.

"These folks are staged and they will obviously proceed to do a restoration as rapidly as possible, but you should prepare to have some outages," he said.

Florida Division of Emergency Management Director Kevin Guthrie said Floridians should expect significant coastal flooding, strong winds, storm surges, heavy rain, beach erosion, and isolated tornadoes. "I urge Floridians statewide to stay indoors, in a safe structure and away from the coastline," he said.

DeSantis also signed an order, expanding the number of Florida counties under a state of emergency to 45, with many of those areas still reeling from the devastation caused by Hurricane Ian.