In the early hours of this Thursday, Hurricane Nicole made landfall south of Vero Beach, about 200 km from Miami, Florida, as a category 1, with maximum sustained winds of 120 km/h.
However, it has weakened to a tropical storm as it moves toward east-central Florida in the morning, according to the US National Hurricane Center.
Nicole became the latest hurricane to hit Florida’s Atlantic coast in a calendar year, breaking the November 4 record set by Hurricane Yankee in 1935.
It is also the first hurricane to make landfall in the United States during November in nearly 40 years.
The US National Weather Center forecasts that the system should weaken to a depression on Friday before becoming a tropical cyclone over the southeastern US.
Experts expect Nicole to move through central and northern Florida into southern Georgia, arriving in the Carolinas on Friday.
In Florida, access to several bridges linking the mainland to the state’s barrier islands has been cut off.
Coastal roads such as Indian River Drive had previously been blocked after waves began breaking against the seawall.
(With information from Euronews and CNN in Spanish)