BAY AREA-For the most part, Tropical Storm Fay is over for the bay area.

On Wednesday, schools, government offices, and services are expected to return to business as usual.

Our southern counties, except the few reports of downed power lines, outages, some flooding, received no significant problems. Flood Watches are still in effect for Polk, Hardee and Highlands Counties.

Fay did not reach hurricane status as once predicted, but it did surprise us a bit.

In the hours following landfall, Fay actually strengthened and formed an eye on doppler radar, as depicted on the included screenshot from SkyMax Digital Doppler HD. It’s almost unheard of for tropical cyclones to strengthen over land, since they are fueled by warm water.

Fay is also expected to exit the state near Daytona Beach, make a sharp turn in the Atlantic Ocean and, make landfall near Jacksonville as a Category 1 Hurricane on Thursday. This will definitely increase the rain chances here in the northern half of the bay area till the weekend.

We’re also watching a tropical wave on the Atlantic Ocean, heading our way. Stay with us for updates.