Florida power outage map: Track widespread outages from Helene ...

More than 700,000 homes and businesses remained without power Friday morning in Florida as Helene weakened to a tropical depression, a decrease from earlier in the day where more than a million people were without electricity.

The storm unleashed 140 mph winds and flooding rain after making landfall late Thursday in the Big Bend coast of the state, becoming the first known Category 4 storm to hit the region since records began in 1851.

For several hours, the storm maintained hurricane strength as it pushed inland across northern Florida and into Georgia. By 5 a.m. ET, the National Hurricane Center downgraded Helene to a tropical storm, and later to a tropical depression.

Though all hurricane and tropical storm warnings have been discontinued along the Florida east and west coasts, more than 700,000 homes and businesses remained without power on Friday, USA TODAY's power outage map showed. Pinellas County had the most customers without power at 181,576, as of Friday afternoon.

Georgians are also experiencing mass power outages, with more than 1 million reported Friday afternoon.

Follow along below for the latest power outage numbers in Florida as Helene washes ashore.

Helene live updates: Storm wreaking havoc across Southeast; 33 dead; 4.5M in the dark

Florida power outage map

More than 3.5 million homes and businesses across Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina were in the dark Friday afternoon after Helene pummeled the region with powerful winds and heavy rain.

Hurricane Helene tracker

Gabe Hauari is a national trending news reporter at USA TODAY. You can follow him on X @GabeHauari or email him at Gdhauari@gannett.com.

Eric Lagatta covers breaking and trending news for USA TODAY. Reach him at elagatta@gannett.com