Photos: See Hurricane Helene’s impact from around Tampa Bay

Jim Cantore’s not in town, which is a good sign for Tampa Bay, but there are a few poncho-clad Weather Channel meteorologists mulling around on both sides of the Bay.

Creative Loafing Tampa Bay photographer Dave Decker is out and about, too, sharing photos as our neighborhoods start to feel the effects of yet another intensifying hurricane cooking in the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

We’ll add photos here as they come in, along with updates.

Thursday, Sept,. 26. 5:46 p.m.

According to the NHC's 5 p.m. advisory, Hurricane Helene is now a Category 3 storm, with sustained 125 mph winds, as it moves north-northeast through the Gulf of Mexico roughly 130 miles west of Tampa Bay, says the National Hurricane Center.

Waves continued to crash on Tampa's Bayshore Boulevard where the tide was going out ahead of an overnight high tide expected to peak after 1 a.m.

Locals were spotted playing in the standing water—an act which FEMA says exposes people to "sewage, bacteria, chemicals" and more—including Tampa photographer Blake Yeager and a man from party band Curb Alert Tunage.

Thursday, Sept. 26. 12:45 p.m.

In its 11 a.m. update, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) placed Hurricane Helene in the Gulf of Mexico, about 255 miles southwest of Tampa. The storm—now a category two with maximum sustained winds of 105 mph—is expected to make landfall in Florida’s Big Bend Thursday evening.

Helene is traveling north-northeast at 14 mph, with a track that’s taken a little nudge to the east. As Best of the Bay-winning WFTS meteorologist Denis Phillips notes, “This doesn't change the impacts to the Bay Area weather.”

“This is not Ian. This storm will not take a drastic hook into the Bay Area. A subtle bump East would take this a bit farther away from Tallahassee, but not really impact the Tampa Bay Area any differently,” Phillips added.

Phillips—who expects to see wind gusts of up to 65 mph on the coast and up to 50 mph inland—warned viewers about dangerous storm surge.

The NHS said that life-threatening and historic storm surge could peak at up to 15 feet in Crystal River and Homosassa, 72 miles north of downtown Tampa.

This morning, Decker watched waves crash onto Tampa’s Ballast Point fishing pier and seawall on nearby Bayshore Boulevard.

As previously reported, Pinellas, Hillsborough, Pasco and Hernando counties have issued mandatory evacuation orders for some residents.