Hurricane Milton spins toward Florida as Category 5 storm

Florida still reeling from Hurricane Helen, braces for second major storm

Meghan Bartels

Editor’s Note (10/7/24): This story will be updated as the situation develops.

Parts of Florida are still recovering from Hurricane Helen less than two weeks ago, and preparations are well underway for the second damaging storm, Hurricane Milton.

As of 5 PM EDT on October 7, Milton is a Category 5 storm with maximum sustained winds of 180 mph off the coast of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula. It appears to be strengthening rapidly and heading northeast toward Florida’s west coast, with the worst impacts currently centered around Tampa. The first rain is expected to arrive in Florida late October 8, with the storm itself expected to make landfall the next day. This region of more than 3 million people is no stranger to hurricane damage, but this may be the first direct damage from a significant storm in Tampa Bay in about 100 years.

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“This is a very serious situation,” says Rick Davis, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Tampa Bay office. “It’s going to impact a lot of people in the state of Florida.”

He said Hurricane Milton is expected to bring a widespread threat to central and central Florida. High winds could cause power outages for up to a week, storm surges could reach 10 to 15 feet, and rainfall totals could range from 5 to 10 inches. Up to 15 inches possible in some areas and potentially tornadoes. All of this happened less than two weeks after Hurricane Helen, which made landfall more than 100 miles north of Tampa Bay but still caused significant damage to the region. It resulted in the highest storm surge since record keeping began in 1947.

Tampa Bay is inherently vulnerable to storm surges because its coastal waters are fairly shallow and the water has nowhere to go but inland. Additionally, Hurricane Milton is expected to arrive at a right angle and hit the Florida coast head-on. Arriving at a more oblique angle can push water along the coast, while a vertical arrangement causes steeper surges because it pushes water further inland. The latter “will build up water faster and faster so it won’t recede,” Davis says.

Helene also obliterated local defenses such as sand dunes, making the area more vulnerable to future surges. Hurricane Milton could produce twice as much storm surge around Tampa Bay as Hurricane Helen. (Hurricane Helen killed at least 230 people across the southeastern United States, including 19 in Florida. Twelve of the latter deaths occurred around the Tampa Bay area.)

The region is also currently particularly vulnerable to flooding along the coastline and further inland. Even before Helene hit, the area had experienced a particularly wet summer, which saturated the ground and caused rivers to rise high, Davis said. Then came Helene’s surge and heavy rain. The storm also scattered debris and pushed sand into the area’s storm drains, making the area unable to absorb additional water.

Some of the details of Hurricane Milton’s landfall remain unclear. There is still time for the storm’s wind strength and exact path toward Florida to change. The intensity of the hurricane is particularly unpredictable because it has gone through a process called rapid intensification, in which the storm’s fastest sustained wind speeds increase by more than 35 miles per hour over a 24-hour period.

Hurricane Milton blew that definition out of the water. “We went from Category 1 to Category 5 in 18 hours,” says Kristen Corbosiero, an atmospheric scientist at the University at Albany. “It’s a really scary situation.” According to new york times, On record, only two Atlantic hurricanes – Wilma in 2005 and Felix in 2007 – are known to have experienced a greater increase in intensity over a 24-hour period.

As of noon EDT on October 7, the storm’s maximum sustained winds were gusting at 175 mph. The wind the previous morning had been only 65 miles per hour. The number of rapidly intensifying storms is expected to increase due to climate change. It’s too early to analyze in detail the role of climate change in this particular storm or the season as a whole, but other hurricanes this year have also strengthened rapidly, including Hurricanes Beryl, Francine and Helene. And like Hurricane Helen, Milton fed on the fairly warm waters that have characterized the Gulf of Mexico this year.

Another concern is that scientists are already seeing signs of Hurricane Milton’s strong winds forming a new eyewall, the heart of the storm surrounding the existing core. Within a day, this process can cause the original snowwall to collapse and new structures to emerge, covering more ground with storm clouds and damage. “The real concern with this type of eyewall replacement cycle is that the storm winds get bigger,” Corbosiero says.

But it’s unlikely the specifics will significantly change the severity of the risks the region experiences, Davis says. And Tampa Bay is known to be particularly vulnerable to severe hurricanes, which typically occur only in surrounding areas. “We’ve been through a lot of storms,” says Davis. But the last time a major hurricane made landfall in the area was in 1921. There has been no direct damage from a hurricane since 1946. Milton probably broke that trend.

Hurricane Milton is expected to hit Florida’s midwestern coast and then cross Florida and then across the Atlantic. Bermuda may be affected over the weekend, but the storm is not expected to move beyond Florida and hit communities in the United States. (On October 7 and 8, before Milton arrived in Florida, the storm was expected to produce a storm surge of 4 to 6 feet and 2 to 4 inches of precipitation on the Yucatan Peninsula.)

But in Florida, the risk is very real. “I hope people take this more seriously than any other storm,” Davis says. “This is going to be a storm that people won’t forget.”

Corbosiero echoes those concerns, especially considering the fact that Milton comes so close to Helene’s heel and its toll. “This is actually likely to be the worst hurricane disaster in U.S. history,” she says. “This is a potentially serious situation, especially if it directly hits Tampa or one of our more populated areas. [Florida’s] West Coast.”