Monday Morning Hurricane Milton Update: Florida Screwed, But Exactly Where?

This morning's visible satellite view shows dawn breaking
on incredibly intense Hurricane Milton. Click on the pic
to make it bigger and easier to see. That bumpy swirl
in the middle is a sign of an extremely powerful storm

 Hurricane Milton continue to power up in the Gulf of Mexico overnight, with top winds this morning  reported at 150 mph.

That's up from 80 mph Sunday afternoon.  

Veteran hurricane watchers are stunned by how fast Milton has been strengthening. I'm barely able to keep up with it. I started the morning saying top winds were 100 mph. By 7 a.m. I had to change that to 125 p.m. By 9:15, just before posting this, I had to say 150 mph. 

It should reach Category 5 soon before it brushes the northern coast of Mexico's Yucatan peninsula to get disrupted ever so slightly. But it will bounce back for awhile and just be amazingly strong

This will go down in history as one of the strongest hurricanes on record in the Gulf of Mexico. 

Hurricane Milton is still forecast to weaken a bit on approach to the Florida peninsula on Wednesday, but that's not saying much.  As we said yesterday, that weakening toward the time of landfall shouldn't make anyone relax.

It'll still be a super dangerous hurricane when it smacks into Florida.

 Exactly when will it hit?

The consensus has been Wednesday, but there's variations on the expected forward speed of Milton. Will it be midday Wednesday? Or will it slow down and not come until night or even early Thursday? We're not sure, and that has implications as to how fast coastal residents need to be moved out of harms way because of the expected storm surge. 

Also, where will landfall in Florida hit? Hurricane Milton seems to be getting more influence from various dips and bumps in the overall upper level wind flow. 

It's been actually moving toward the east-southeast, and is now expected to brush past the northern Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. If these southward trends continue, its interaction with land in Mexico might briefly disrupted Hurricane Milton's strengthening process,

A nice hope, but don't count on it. Plus, Milton would recover as it turns northeastward starting tomorrow. 

That slight southward shift in Milton's path today is actually complicating forecasts on how far north it will turn as it sets its sights on Florida. 

A southward dip in the upper level wind flow in the western Gulf of Mexico wants to create a corresponding northward bump in that wind field near Florida. That's why Hurricane Milton will take a turn toward the northeast.

How big will that northward bump get? We don't really know. For now, the forecast landfall is for near Tampa, but could be as far north as Cedar Key in northwestern Florida or as far down as southwestern parts of the state south of Naples. 

For those who are worried, any northward deviation in the forecast track still won't affect the flood disaster zones of north Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee and especially North Carolina. Those areas should expect no effects from Milton. In fact, that region mercifully will have very little or no rain for the next seven days. 

We shouldn't focus too much on the exact Florida landfall spot.  A wide area of Florida's Gulf Coast will be engulfed in an intense storm surge. Much of the rest of Florida can expect very damaging winds, made worse by all the debris left over from Helene blowing around. Oh, and expect lots of inland flooding, too

In other words, at least part of Florida is screwed. Again.

When Helene blew by less than two weeks, a highly destructive and deadly storm surge reached seven feet in Tampa Bay.  Current forecasts in Tampa Bay indicate Milton would create 8 to 12 feet of storm surge. 

Tampa Bay is oriented such that if Hurricane Milton goes over or a slight bit north of Tampa, surges would be forced by topography to really pile up in that bay, hence the worry. If Milton goes south of Tampa, it won't be nearly as bad.

But then if that happens, places like Fort Myers Beach, flattened by Hurricane Ian in 2022 and damaged by Helene at the end of September, would be devastated again. 

Anywhere in Florida where there's a storm surge risk, people ought to be getting o

In any event, this will be the third time this year Florida has been hit by a hurricane. They can't take much more.