Ernesto made landfall near Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, early in the morning on 28 August. At one point the storm was predicted to become a major hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico and threaten parts of the Gulf Coast, a grim possibility in light of the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina's landfall. However, Ernesto moved much farther east than anticipated, and made landfall as a tropical storm on the southern tip of Florida on 29 August. Two people died in Florida in road traffic accidents attributed to the weather conditions, as the cyclone slowly moved northward across the southern half of the peninsula. Ernesto restrengthened into a tropical storm as it emerged from land near Cape Canaveral, and was just below hurricane strength when it made landfall again in North Carolina on 31 August.