How Tropical Storm Elsa will impact Columbus this week
Tropical Storm Elsa could bring rain to the Columbus area, but not much else.
That’s according to Lauren Reaves, forecaster for the National Weather Service’s Peachtree City office. The area will see a “pretty good chance of rain” during the day Wednesday, Reaves said.
But being so far away from Elsa, the area shouldn’t see much in the way of increased winds.
“We’re actually entering an active pattern, so it may be hard to distinguish, but we do have some chances for rain,” Reaves told the Ledger-Enquirer Monday. “Generally in the afternoons and evenings would be the highest.”
Elsa’s path will take it over most of central Cuba on Monday — where nearly 200,000 people have been evacuated — before it reemerges in the Florida straits early Tuesday morning, the Miami Herald reported. The storm got slightly stronger overnight but continued to shrink, with 65 mph maximum sustained winds that now extend only 70 miles from the center. Its pace held steady at 14 mph.
As of the 11 a.m. advisory, Elsa looks like it will make landfall in Florida in Horseshoe Beach, north of the Suwannee River, Wednesday morning.
By the time the storm makes it into Georgia, Reaves said, it will likely be weakened from a tropical storm into a tropical depression.
The current timing on that is “during the day” Wednesday, she said.
This story was originally published July 5, 2021 at 12:59 PM.
