LIVE: Hurricane Helene - Lee County, Florida | FOX 4

Hurricane Helene strengthened into a dangerous, Category 3 storm in the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico on Thursday afternoon and is expected to strengthen further – potentially becoming a Category 4 or higher – before making landfall over Florida. Helene is likely to bring life-threatening storm surge, damaging winds, torrential rain, and flooding to parts of the Sunshine State. Helene is the eighth named storm of the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season. If landfall happens over Florida's Big Bend region, it would mark the third hurricane in the last two years to make landfall there (Hurricane Idalia in 2023, and Hurricane Debby in 2024).