Tropical Storm Elsa crosses west Cuba and heads for Florida

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This GOES-16 GeoColor satellite image taken Monday, July 5, 2021, at 4:50 p.m. EDT, and provided by NOAA, shows Tropical Storm Elsa over western Cuba with strong rain and winds. Forecasters say it will move on to the Florida Keys on Tuesday and Florida’s central Gulf coast by Wednesday. The storm is moving over mainly rural areas to the east of Havana on Monday after making landfall near Cienega de Zapata, a natural park with few inhabitants. (NOAA via AP)

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Frank Barakat carries his daughter Valentina, 2, through an shopping aisle dedicated for hurricane supplies as the Home Depot store prepares for possible effects of tropical storm Elsa in Miami on Saturday, July 3, 2021. Elsa fell back to tropical storm force as it brushed past Haiti and the Dominican Republic on Saturday and threatened to unleash flooding and landslides before taking aim at Cuba and Florida. (Al Diaz/Miami Herald via AP)

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Home Depot department supervisor, Arnaldo Gonzalez, loads water bottles into Elena Arvalo’s shopping cart as shoppers prepare for possible effects of tropical storm Elsa in Miami on Saturday, July 3, 2021. Elsa fell back to tropical storm force as it brushed past Haiti and the Dominican Republic on Saturday and threatened to unleash flooding and landslides before taking aim at Cuba and Florida. (Al Diaz/Miami Herald via AP)

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Fishermen inspect their boats after they have been taken out of the bay to avoid damage from the passage of Tropical Storm Elsa, in Havana, Cuba, Monday, July 5, 2021. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

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New homeowner Breanna Landers, 30, of Brandon, thanks park rangers Elizabeth Peterson and Chad Cash while they load sandbags inside the trunk of her vehicle at a Hillsborough County site to help residents prepare for Tropical Storm Elsa at Edward Medard Conservation Park in Plant City, Fla., on Monday, July 5, 2021. (Ivy Ceballo/Tampa Bay Times via AP)

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People fill sandbags to prep for storm Elsa at Walsingham Park, Monday, July 5, 2021 in Seminole, Fla. (Arielle Bader /Tampa Bay Times via AP)

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Park rangers Kevin Anderson, Chad Cash, Antonio Valdez and Elizabeth Peterson work together to load sandbags inside the trunk of a vehicle at a Hillsborough County distribution site for residents preparing ahead of Tropical Storm Elsa at Edward Medard Conservation Park in Plant City, Fla., on Monday, July 5, 2021. (Ivy Ceballo/Tampa Bay Times via AP)

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Motorists wait in line at a Hillsborough County sandbag distribution site in preparation for Tropical Storm Elsa at Edward Medard Conservation Park in Plant City, Fla., on Monday, July 5, 2021. (Ivy Ceballo/Tampa Bay Times via AP)

By Andrea Rodríguez

HAVANA (AP) — Tropical Storm Elsa swept across a mostly rural section of western Cuba with strong rain and winds Monday, then moved into the Florida Straits for a possible close brush with the lower Florida Keys and the Dry Tortugas on Tuesday.

The storm made landfall in Cuba on Monday afternoon near Cienega de Zapata, a natural park with few inhabitants. It headed northwestward across the island, passing Havana just to the east.

Back over water, Elsa’s maximum sustained winds strengthened to 60 mph (95 kph) late Monday. Its core was about 20 miles (35 kilometers) north-northeast of Havana and 80 miles (130 kilometers) south-southwest of Key West, Florida. It was moving to the north-northwest at 12 mph (19 kph).

There were no early reports of serious damage as Elsa passed over Cuba.

“The wind is blowing hard and there is a lot of rain. Some water is getting under the door of my house. In the yard the level is high, but it did not get into the house,” Lázaro Ramón Sosa, a craftsman and photographer who lives in the town of Cienega de Zapata, told The Associated Press by telephone.

Sosa said he saw some avocado trees fall nearby.

Though Havana missed the brunt of the storm, many people in the capital stayed in place.

“For now, I staying at home. We have to wait for the night and see exactly what happens,” Aida Herrera, who lives next to the Malecon boulevard facing the sea, told AP.

Elsa had spent Sunday and much of Monday sweeping parallel to Cuba’s southern coast before heading on to land, sparing most of the island from significant effects. As a precaution, Cuban officials had evacuated 180,000 people against the possibility of heavy flooding from a storm that already battered several Caribbean islands, killing at least three people.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center said the storm was expected to be near the Florida Keys early Tuesday and would then . pass near or over portions of Florida’s west coast by late Tuesday and into Wednesday.

Tropical storm warnings were posted for the Florida Keys from Craig Key westward to the Dry Tortugas and for the west coast of Florida from Flamingo northward to the Ochlockonee River.

Elsa was the first hurricane of the Atlantic season until Saturday morning and caused widespread damage on several eastern Caribbean islands Friday. As a tropical storm, it resulted in the deaths of one person on St. Lucia and of a 15-year-old boy and a 75-year-old woman in separate events in the Dominican Republic.

Elsa is the earliest fifth-named storm on record, said Brian McNoldy, a hurricane researcher at the University of Miami.