A man secures his fishing boat to land ahead of the passage of Tropical Storm Elsa in Havana
HAVANA, July 6 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Tropical Storm Elsa was unleashing heavy winds and rains that the National Hurricane Center warned would cause “significant flash flooding and mudslides” as it moved across western Cuba Monday on a path toward Florida.
Elsa was dumping heavy rains some 30 miles east of Havana about 8 p.m., said the NHC. Storm surge and tropical storm warnings were in effect for the west coast of Florida.
“Meteorological radar confirmed that at 1:40 p.m. local time (17:40 GMT) Elsa made landfall at the Cienaga de Zapata (Zapata Swamp), on the southern coast of the western province of Matanzas,” said the country’s Institute of Meteorology (Insmet).
Insmet experts hope the storm will weaken as it moves inland on its way out to sea again at an unspecified point between Matanzas and the western province of Artemisa.
Rain will continue to affect the central region of the country, with heavy rainfall in some locations, mainly in mountainous areas.
Due to the storm’s current trajectory, Civil Defense lifted storm warnings for the eastern provinces of Guantanamo, Santiago de Cuba, Granma, Holguin and Las Tunas, as well as central Camaguey and Ciego de Avila provinces.
Warnings are still in effect for Sancti Spiritus, Villa Clara, Cienfuegos, Matanzas, Mayabeque and Havana.
Elsa hit Cuba as it undergoes a severe outbreak of COVID-19, with a record 21 deaths from the disease on Monday and 3,075 new cases.
The storm, which reached sustained winds of 120 kilometers per hour to classify as a Category 1 hurricane on the 1-to-5 Saffir-Simpson scale of intensity, weakened slightly Saturday morning into a tropical storm.
Elsa is the first hurricane of the hurricane season in the Caribbean, which runs from June 1 to Nov. 30, preceded by tropical storms Ana, Bill, Claudette and Danny. — NNN-AGENCIES
