Sandy is moving away from Florida, but she'll likely be heard from in a major way in other parts of the United States.

The storm has regained hurricane strength after weakening to a tropical storm overnight. Although it will have minimal adverse impact on Bay area weather this weekend, it remains a large storm that poses a major threat to the U.S. Northeast.

All watches and warnings for Florida's east coast were lifted earlier today. Tropical storm warnings were in effect for South Santee River, S.C., to Duck, N.C. and the Pamlico and Albermarle sounds. Tropical force winds were already being felt off the coast of North Carolina.

The storm was centered 360 miles east-southeast of Charleston, S.C., and advancing northeast at 14 mph with maximum sustained winds of 75 mph. It was projected to move parallel to the east coast of the United States through the weekend.

Locally, according to Bay News 9 meteorologist Brian McClure, Sandy will continue to cause gusty winds Saturday and Sunday. There's a high risk of rip currents, and a small craft advisory is in effect into Monday.

Behind Sandy, dry air and much cooler temperatures are on the way.

"What we're seeing around here is strong winds on the back side of the system and dry air," McClure said. "Already, the dew points are starting to come down for us. Sunday, north to northwest winds will still be in place. The dew points will continue dropping, so cooler air will be pushing in behind that system."

Local highs will drop to the low 70s by early in the week, and morning lows will be in the 50s around Tampa Bay and the 40s in the north counties.

The major concern about Sandy is it's expected to eventually bend back to the northwest toward the mid-Atlantic coast. That's causing a lot of apprehension along the east coast from northern Virginia to New England. Sandy is projected to make landfall somewhere betwen there around mid-week.

Experts said the storm could be wider and stronger than Irene, which caused more than $15 billion in damage, and could rival the worst East Coast storm on record. Because it may blend with two other storms and bring wind, rain and snow, Sandy has picked up the nickname "Frankenstorm."

"At this point, it’s still going to stay very close to being hurricane strength and may peak over that as it transitions into an extra-tropical system," McClure said.

"Remember hearing about nor'easters? Well this will kind of be turning into a nor’easter, so it stays as a pretty strong system even, though it may not take on all of its tropical characteristics in the next couple of days."