Hurricane Nicole strikes Florida; prompts closure of schools, airports and theme parks

A category one hurricane named Nicole is predicted to rip through Florida on Thursday night as it hits the state’s Atlantic coast, according to BBC. The hurricane has already resulted in the closure of educational institutions and theme parks, and the grounding of flights. It comes just two weeks after Hurricane Ian hit Florida and left behind a trail of destruction.

Nicole would be the first hurricane to make landfall in the United States this late in the season in the last four decades. It is forecasted to hit the south-eastern or east-central coast of Florida on Thursday. Earlier on Wednesday, it was upgraded from a tropical storm by the National Hurricane Center (NHC) after it was about 105 miles east of West Palm Beach. 

The storm has put 67 counties of the state under a state of declaring emergency, with several of them already having issued orders to residents. According to state governor Ron DeSantis, hurricane Nicole would "affect huge parts of Florida" on Thursday. Multiple airports in the state, including Orlando International, halted flight operations, and several others, such as Miami International and Fort Lauderdale, experienced heavy delays and cancellation of flights.

Theme parks shut down as Hurricane Nicole approaches Florida

The storm has also impacted theme parks like Disney World and Universal Orlando Resort, which were shut down on Wednesday. Furthermore, the NHC has also forecasted potential flash flooding across Florida’s peninsula. The storm, which comes unusually late in the season, is also said to move to southern Georgia and the Carolinas on Friday.

NHC’s senior hurricane expert Daniel Brown, said that “because the system is so large, really almost the entire east coast of Florida except the extreme southeastern part and the Keys is going to receive tropical storm force winds.” “We are going to be concerned with rainfall as we get later into the week across portions of the southeastern United States and southern Appalachians, where there could be some flooding, flash flooding with that rainfall,” he added.