Hurricane Nicole brings rain and wind to Florida then weakens to tropical storm

A weakening Tropical Storm Nicole doused large areas of Florida with heavy rain on Thursday, after battering the east coast overnight as a rare November hurricane.

The late-season cyclone made landfall close to Vero Beach at about 3am, delivering 75mph winds and a damaging storm surge that collapsed buildings and swept away roads as far north as Daytona Beach.

Tens of thousands of residents lost power, many in areas recovering from Hurricane Ian’s devastating rampage in September.

But Nicole, which gained category 1 hurricane strength on Wednesday afternoon over the Bahamas, just hours before its Florida landfall, lacked the intensity of its 150mph predecessor, which killed 114 people.

Inland, Nicole was quickly downgraded to a tropical storm with maximum sustained winds of below 60mph as it headed on a diagonal north-west path towards Orlando.

The National Hurricane Center (NHC) in Miami said in a morning update the storm would continue to lose power but remained dangerous with heavy rainfall and inland flooding the biggest risks as its remnants turned north-east on a path through Georgia and the Carolinas and towards New York.

“Nicole is a large storm with hazards extending well to the north of the center, outside of the forecast cone,” senior hurricane specialist Robbie Berg said in the NHC 7am bulletin.

“These hazards will continue to affect much of the Florida peninsula and portions of the south-east US. Flooding will also be possible on Friday in the south-east through the central Appalachians, including the Blue Ridge mountains, and extending northward through eastern Ohio, west central Pennsylvania, into western New York by Friday night into Saturday.”

Nicole is only the third recorded hurricane to strike the US mainland in November, usually a quiet month in the tropics as the Atlantic storm season winds down. The most recent was Kate in 1985, which hit the Florida panhandle.

Nicole is also the eighth hurricane of an active 2022 season. Storm-weary residents along Florida’s east coast were ordered to evacuate from barrier islands and waterfront communities, including Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach.

Staff at the club, where the former president spent the day on Wednesday analyzing the midterm election results, hung up when a reporter called to ask if Trump was leaving.

In Daytona Beach, several buildings at the shoreline were swept into the sea, and half a dozen other multi-story residential blocks already damaged by Hurricane Ian and threatened by Nicole were evacuated. Authorities went door to door telling people to grab possessions and leave.

In Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, a large section of the fishing pier collapsed into the ocean.

Schools in more than a dozen districts were closed on Thursday, as were theme parks in Orlando.

The Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, signed an emergency declaration for dozens of counties. Joe Biden also declared an emergency in Florida, freeing federal resources and assistance to supplement state, tribal and local response efforts. Federal Emergency Management Agency personnel were still in the state responding to the aftermath of Ian.

“It will affect huge parts of the state of Florida all day,” DeSantis said, urging residents to follow instructions from authorities.

“Winds are the main concern but we also expect to see heavy rains and potential for flash flooding. It will contribute to continued beach erosion in areas that have already seen erosion from Hurricane Ian.”

Engineers at the Kennedy space center were assessing damage to Nasa’s $4.1bn Artemis moon rocket, which was left on its launchpad through the storm ahead of its scheduled blast-off on 16 November.

Nicole forced mission managers to push back the launch attempt two days but engineers were confident leaving Artemis at the pad, insisting its Space Launch System rocket and Orion capsule were designed to withstand sustained winds of up to 85mph.

The Orlando Sentinel reported that sensors on the launchpad tower at Cape Canaveral recorded at least one gust of 100mph.

“Technicians will perform walkdowns and inspections at the pad to assess the status of the rocket and spacecraft as soon as practicable,” the space agency said in a statement.

Associated Press contributed reporting