Nicole made landfall as a Category 1 hurricane at about 3 a.m. Thursday near Vero Beach, but caused no significant damage there, officials said Thursday.
The brunt of the storm hit north of its center. By 10 a.m., Nicole's maximum sustained winds were down to 50 mph (85 kph), centered between Tampa and Orlando, moving west-northwest near 16 mph.
The storm left south Florida sunny and calm as it moved up the peninsula, but could dump as much as 6 inches of rain over Blue Ridge Mountains by Friday, the hurricane center said. Flash and urban flooding will be possible as the rain spreads into the eastern Ohio Valley, Mid-Atlantic, and New England through Saturday.
Nicole covered nearly the entire weather-weary state of Florida while also reaching into Georgia and the Carolinas before dawn on Thursday. Tropical storm-force winds extended as far as 450 miles from the center in some directions as Nicole turned northward over central Florida.
The anticipated arrival of Nicole has already caused several local authorities to make a change in plans for later this week. The Veterans Day parades in both Live Oak and Lake City have been canceled out of an abundance of caution.
“Safety is more important,” Jim Broe, an organizer for the Live Oak parade and ceremony, said. “Sadly, we had to pull the plug.”
On top of that, area schools are canceling classes for Thursday, with Suwannee, Columbia and Hamilton counties all closing schools ahead of what normally would’ve been a 3-day weekend. That includes Florida Gateway College, which is closing its campuses Thursday as well.
Shayne Morgan, the county’s Emergency Management director, said Nicole going from a tropical storm to a hurricane doesn’t really change the calculus of the county’s response all that much. Still, he urged caution for local residents in the face of incoming inclement weather. The county did upgrade from a tropical storm watch to a warning on Wednesday, meaning that adverse condition are expected in the area.
“Our posture is that we’ve been monitoring the storm and watching the storm come in,” Morgan said. “Our crews realize that there is a very good possibility that there may be some (tree) limbs downed. The power companies are aware the lines may go down. We may have some power outages as this moves through (today).”
Morgan also confirmed that the county court system will be closed Thursday in anticipation of Nicole. He wasn’t sure about scheduled garbage pickups or if the city was shuttering operations for the day. Normal county operations will proceed through Thursday as of Wednesday night, Morgan said.
Still, even with some services remaining open Thursday, Morgan urged an abundance of caution ahead of Nicole.
“We want everybody to remain safe,” Morgan said. “If you can, limit travel as much as you can during the time that the weather is at its worst, which is likely to be the afternoon hours. We just want everybody to remain safe as the storm passes through our area.”