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| Dawn breaking on Hurricane Milton this morning in this visible satellite photo. As you can see, it's nearing Florida, and nothing has changed about the dread of how powerful this thing will be when it hits. |
Things will get worse and worse through the day and evening in advance of the big blow we've been nervously anticipating.
No miracles happened overnight. Hurricane Milton maintained its Category 5 strength as it makes its way toward Florida.
The overall forecast hasn't really changed for the past three days and it hasn't changed this morning. Winds won't be 160 mph at landfall - they'll be slightly less than that.
But that slightly less intense wind doesn't matter at all. This will very likely be one of the worst hurricanes in Florida's history, which is saying something. The Sunshine State has a long history of incredibly deadly, destructive storms.
Those historic storms range from the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935 which killed more than 400 people in and near the Florida Keys, to Hurricane Andrew in 1992, which decimated towns south of Miami and killed more than 60 people, to Hurricane Michael in 2018, which pretty much leveled Mexico Beach, Florida and surrounding communities, but people got out of the way of that storm, so the death toll was limited to 16.
I'm hoping everybody is out of the way of Milton before it gets to Florida. Stragglers have maybe a few hours to flee this morning, but even that is iffy.
MILTON'S MORNING STATUS
At 4 a.m. Hurricane Milton still had top winds of 160 mph. It was about 300 miles southwest of Tampa and heading toward the northeast at 14 miles per hour. Its forward speed is expected to increase during the day today.
Those winds decreased ever so slightly to 155 mph by 8 a.m. but that really doesn't make much of a difference as to what's going to happen.
Tropical storm force winds extended outward 125 miles from the center of Hurricane Milton, and that wind field is forecast to get larger today. That means it won't be all that long before tropical storm force winds and the start of storm surges will hit the Florida Gulf Coast. Those gusty, strong winds will probably be on the coast by early afternoon.
Trouble is also brewing well ahead of Hurricane Milton.
Ominously, there has already been reports of minor storm surge flooding along parts of the Florida Gulf Coast. So imagine how bad things will get when the hurricane arrives tonight.
Outer rainbands and outflow storms from the hurricane are already moving into Florida, setting up a situation where tornadoes can develop. A tornado warning was already in effect for a time after 7 a.m. today east of Fort Myers.
As the rain bands become more forceful this afternoon, some of the thunderstorms will break up into individual supercells this afternoon, which have the potential to spin off tornadoes, a couple of which might be quite strong, according to NOAA's Storm Prediction Center
HEART OF THE STORM
The big trouble comes tonight, of course, as Milton is expected to crash ashore sometime around midnight, give or take.
Everybody's talking about the storm surge, which makes sense because this would be the deadliest and most dangerous part of Hurricane Milton.
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| Screen grab of video of what the Hurricane Ian storm surge in Fort Myers Beach, Florida in 2022. Hurricane Milton's storm surge is expected to be at least this bad, and will hit in the dark of night, making it even more terrifying. |
If - and this is a huge if - Hurricane Milton makes landfall south of Tampa, then the storm surge in parts of Tampa Bay would be not as dire as some forecast make it out to be.
Still, it would be bad, with some eastern parts of the bay seeing 6 to as much as 12 feet of storm surge. But the potential is still there for up to 15 feet, so if you live in the Tampa Bay area and fled the hurricane, you made a very smart move.
Even if the storm surge isn't as bad as the worst forecasts in Tampa Bay, that metro area is going to have a whole host of huge other problems caused by Hurricane Milton. I'll get into those in a bit.
The worst storm surges will hit right where Milton comes ashore and points slightly south of that. That probably means Sarasota and the barrier islands near it.
Also, the bay that makes up Charlotte Harbor around Port Charlotte and Punta Gorda is oriented in a similar fashion to Tampa Bay. Since Charlotte Harbor is near or a little south of the expected path of Milton, water will really pile up in this bay to form an incredible destructive storm surge.
The bottom line is the current best guess for worst storm surge will run between Bradenton and Fort Myers. Though destructive storm surges are possible north and especially south of that range.
One odd note is that a few "lucky" places north of Milton's path might end up with intense east winds that actually pull water away from the shore. Hard to say exactly where, so don't count on it. But those few spots might actually see much below normal water levels at the coast.
Strong hurricanes tend to wobble in their paths, so Hurricane Milton could still jog north into Tampa or south toward Punta Gorda. So we have no guarantees on who gets the worst storm surge.
To give you an idea of how terrifying storm surges like this, click on this link to watch the storm surge with Hurricane Ian at Fort Myers Beach two years ago. If you see the image below, click on that to watch the video. When you do, notice the house washing away and getting flattened. The storm surge with Hurricane Milton will be at least as bad, and will come in the dark of night. You can see why you can't survive something like this.
HIGH WINDS
The expected peak winds with Hurricane Milton could be near 130 mph at landfall. The hurricane will race across the state overnight and Thursday, spreading hurricane force winds across central Florida all the way through the Atlantic coast.
There's going to be huge power outages, massive tree damage and structural damage coast to coast in Florida. Many people will have no electricity for weeks. This includes heavily populated areas like Tampa, Orlando, Daytona and Melbourne.
If current forecasts hold, Tampa will end up on the northern eyewall of Hurricane Milton. Due to a weather front impinging on the northern edge of Milton, the wind should be particularly fierce in the Tampa area. Mobile homes will be completely unsafe. Roofs will blow off homes and commercial buildings. Trees will smash into many other homes.
FLOODING
In addition to the particularly intense winds expected around Tampa, the rain with Hurricane Milton seems likely to be the most ferocious near Tampa. NOAA's Weather Prediction Center expects a foot or more of rain in and near Tampa in a short period of time that will cause, as they put it, "widespread and catastrophic flooding in the Tampa area tonight."
That kind of rain can't drain will from the relatively flat terrain. And any storm surges would block that runoff from entering Tampa Bay. All this means that even homes in the Tampa metro area that technically are safe from storm surges will get flooded anyway, just due to the rain and wind.
Elsewhere across central Florida, a good 8 to 12 inches of rain is in the forecast, so the flooding will be intense there, too.
BOTTOM LINE
All of the above is what is expected out of Hurricane Milton. As always, there will be some adjustments, some surprises, perhaps a glimmer of good news and some tragedies.
At this point, there isn't much anybody can do to stop this or prepare. People only have a few hours left this morning to rush their preparations to completion.
Hurricane Helene a couple weeks ago caused more than 230 deaths, the highest toll from a United States hurricane since Katrina in 2005. I guess all we can hope for now is that enough people have gotten out of the way of Hurricane Milton so that we don't see a full repeat of Helene's grim legacy.
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