Eta briefly gained a eye feature before bad conditions removed most of its convection, although the storm was able to maintain its intensity as it grew in size and approached South Florida. At 04:00 UTC on November 9, Eta made its third landfall on the Lower Matecumbe Key in the Florida Keys with the same intensity as its Cuban landfall. It then passed just south of the southwestern coast of Florida as it turned westward. Eta then turned southwestward under the influence of a strong ridge across the Gulf of Mexico, Florida, and near the US East Coast. This also brought it into an area of really dry air, causing the storm to weaken and its area of gale-force winds to shrink. However, even after its center became sheared to the west of its convection, Eta began to intensify again over the warm waters of the Gulf. Eta than began to speed up north-northeast around the western edge of a subtropical ridge as its center reformed under the convection and an eye formed. Eta then regained minimal hurricane status at 12:35 UTC on November 11, reaching a fourth peak intensity with winds of 75 mph (120 km/h) and a pressure of 983 mbar.