Subtropical Storm Nicole, which is expected to begin impacting Florida as early as Tuesday, has forced Gov. Ron DeSantis to issue a state of emergency for 34 Florida counties.
Alerts were issued as the subtropical storm is expected to become a hurricane over the Bahamas before hitting Florida. Nicole is the 14th storm of the Atlantic season early Monday morning.
The storm has been classified as subtropical, which means it has characteristics of both a tropical and non-tropical storm. It is expected to turn into a fully tropical storm in the next day or so. It could become a hurricane before making landfall somewhere along the Florida Coast Wednesday night into Thursday. It could then move toward the East Coast through the weekend.
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“We won’t really start to see any significant impacts from Nicole until really Tuesday night to Wednesday, so really it shouldn’t have a huge impact on voting operations tomorrow,” hurricane specialist Phillippe Papin told The Associated Press.
“Unfortunately this is going to be a very large storm, with a very large wind field on the north side. This is going to cause quite substantial surf, potentially dangerous storm surge somewhere along the Florida east coast, and heavy rainfall and probably significant winds over a large area,” Papin added.
DeSantis’ order was made the day before Election Day, but it didn’t say that people should refrain from going to the polls.
The order advised people to have a disaster plan, be aware of flood alerts and evacuation zones and keep half-full gas tanks.
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“While this storm does not, at this time, appear that it will become much stronger, I urge all Floridians to be prepared and to listen to announcements from local emergency management officials,” DeSantis said in a statement. “We will continue to monitor the trajectory and strength of this storm as it moves towards Florida.”