Elsa weakens to tropical storm, makes landfall on Florida Gulf coast

By Octavio Jones and Jonathan Allen

TAMPA, Fla. (Reuters) -Elsa weakened to a tropical storm early on Wednesday before making landfall on the north Florida Gulf coast, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

It had strengthened to a hurricane, the first of the season, on Tuesday night before weakening again as it moved north parallel to Florida's west coast, sparing the state from some of the serious harm authorities had braced for.

"Clearly this could have been worse," Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said at a news briefing on Wednesday. There were no reports of injuries or major structural damage, though there still remained a risk of tornadoes, he said. About 26,000 customers had lost their power across Florida.

Way Williams, 65, and his wife Jennifer, 60, stand holding hands at Bay Vista Park, as Elsa strengthened into a Category 1 hurricane hours before an expected landfall on Florida's northern Gulf Coast, in St. Petersburg, Florida, U.S. July 6, 2021. REUTERS/Octavio Jones

In Tampa, some residents were out for an early morning jog along the shore as gray clouds parted.

The storm was making landfall in Taylor County with maximum sustained winds of 65 miles per hour (100 km per hour), the NHC said in an advisory issued at 11 a.m. ET (1500 GMT).

Elsa also briefly strengthened to a hurricane last week, when it killed at least three people, blew roofs off homes, toppled trees and sparked flooding in Caribbean island nations east of Cuba.

Hurricane warnings that had been issued along a stretch of Florida's west coast were downgraded to tropical storm warnings.

(Reporting by Octavio Jones in Tampa, Florida, and Jonathan Allen in New York; Additional reporting by Maria Ponnezhath in Bengaluru; Editing by Andrea Ricci and Lisa Shumaker)