Impacts from Eta lessen across SW Florida as Eta moves northward

As of 10 p.m. Wednesday, Eta remains a tropical storm with maximum sustained winds of 65 mph. Right now, the center is approximately 50 miles west-northwest of Tampa.

The National Hurricane Center has Eta making landfall near Crystal River by tomorrow morning.

With Eta now about 150 miles northwest of Southwest Florida, our impacts are going to continue to lessen and conditions will overall improve. Tropical Storm Warnings have been canceled for everyone in Southwest Florida expect areas north of Boca Grande.

While winds will continue to die down, we still could see some wind gusts of 30 to 35 mph overnight. We’ll also continue to see some additional scattered light to moderate rain from Eta’s outer bands.

One threat that we aren’t completely finished with is storm surge. While waters have been slowly receding, we will continue to deal with an onshore steering flow overnight, which is going to prevent the water from receding as fast as we would like. On top of that, high tide will occur between the hours of 10pm and 1am tonight for areas along the Southwest Florida coast, which will also slow the receding process down. Storm Surge warnings remain in effect for coastal Charlotte and Lee county due to that. Remember, if you run into a flooded roadway, turn around, don’t drown!

Look for big improvements in both wind, rain, and even storm surge by tomorrow afternoon!

We have another tropical wave to watch in the Caribbean that has a high chance of developing into a tropical storm or tropical depression over the next five days. The next name on the list is Iota.

Right now, computer models take this system westward into Honduras. It currently is not a threat to the United States but bears watching.