Hurricane Ian made landfall in Florida at 3:10 PM local time, the National Hurricane Centre confirmed in a tweet on Wednesday. The eye of the tropical storm touched Florida at Cayo Costa – an island off Florida’s coast, and is now heading towards Tampa Bay from where it will enter the mainlands. 

Although there were concerns that the storm might turn into a category 5 cyclone, the National Hurricane Centre has confirmed that it continued to remain in category 4 with a maximum wind speed of 240 kilometers per hour, when it reached Florida.

Also read: How to prepare for hurricanes and recover from them

The speed of Hurricane Ian is expected to fall as it passes through Florida. However, Michael Brennan, the acting deputy director at the center, said that it will take at least a day from landfall for the speed to weaken.

“It’s going to take some time for that circulation to spin down,” Brennan told CNN, adding that the wind speeds will fall by early morning on Thursday. A US Air Force Reserve reconnaissance aircraft is measuring the speed of the hurricane in real-time.

Earlier, when hurricane Ian made landfall in Cuba, it cause severe damage along with long power outages. The images and videos coming from Florida show the cyclone’s impact on the ground.

Colin McCarthy, a UC Davies student of atmospheric sciences and a regular news contributor on extreme weather, shared a video on Twitter that showed that Ian has brought along sharks from the ocean and dropped them on Florida streets. 

Watch the video here. 

Also read: 3 reasons why Hurricane Ian hitting Florida can lead to severe flooding

Another video shared by Garrett Harvey, a meteorology major, shows homes in Naples Park being flooded with water. The homeowner was seen swimming in the basement. 

Watch it here.

CNN meteorologist, Brandon Miller, said that the hurricane is the joint strongest storm to hit Florida’s West Coast after Hurricane Charley in 2004. 

Reports say that severe structural damage has taken place in Cape Coral, while more than 7500 people in Hillsborough County have taken shelter in special homes to save their lives during the storm.