Ian strengthens back to a hurricane and heading to South Carolina

SARASOTA, Fla. (WWSB) - After dumping over a foot of rain over east central Florida hurricane Ian is on the move. Ian was downgraded to a tropical storm earlier today as it moved near Orland and Daytona beach. As it emerged out over the Atlantic it has once again strengthened to a cat. 1 hurricane with winds of 75 mph. The same trough that turned Ian into Charlotte Harbor is now going to swing the storm into the coast of S. Carolina with wind gusts up to 100 mph by Friday afternoon or evening.

Dangerous winds and widespread power outages will once again be a big problem for folks in Georgia and South Carolina. It will then march toward the NW and bring big time flooding through the Appalachians over the upcoming weekend. It could bring downpours all the way through southern Ohio early next week.

Now that it has cleared the state and continues to move away from us we will see improving weather conditions along the west coast of Florida. We will see mostly sunny skies on Friday with winds out of the north at 10-15 mph. Highs will be in the mid 80s and lows in the low 70s.

The great weather will continue through the weekend and much of next week.