Florida Menaced by Rapidly Strengthening Hurricane Milton

Article content

(Bloomberg) — Hurricane Milton threatens to become stronger, possibly reaching Category 4, and could trigger the largest evacuations in seven years as it targets Florida’s Gulf Coast and Tampa.

The storm has the potential to cause billions of dollars in damage and cause more misery in a state and region still reeling from Hurricane Helen less than two weeks ago.

Article content

Milton’s maximum sustained winds reached 85 mph, up from 45 mph previously, meaning they are intensifying quickly. The US National Hurricane Center said this situation, in which a storm’s winds increase by 35 mph in 24 hours or less, could have serious consequences for people in its path. Before making landfall on October 9, the storm was packing winds of 145 mph. It will likely hit the beach a little weaker but still be able to tear off roofs of buildings, snap trees and cause prolonged power outages.

Some computer models say Milton could become a Category 5 storm as it approaches Florida. In addition, although Milton is holding together now, it will likely become a major storm when it makes landfall, “with very serious impacts spreading over a large area,” said Eric Blake, a forecaster at the center.

Governor Ron DeSantis declared a state of emergency for 51 counties and said the entire Florida peninsula on the Gulf side would likely suffer significant impacts from the storms, which would likely recur sometime in the afternoon of October 9.

“You will likely have a significant power outage,” DeSantis said at a news conference, adding that utilities are devoting resources to restoring power as the power outages are likely to be worse than what Helen caused. “We also have nearly 6,000 ambulances ready to help,” he added.

Article content

Article content

In a statement Sunday, President Joe Biden said he had been briefed on the potential impact of the storm and federal efforts to provide life-saving resources.

Mexico has issued a hurricane warning for the northern coast of the Yucatán Peninsula, where Milton is expected to graze.

“I urge Floridians to finish their storm preparations now and implement their plan,” Kevin Guthrie, executive director of the state Division of Emergency Management, said in a video news conference. “I strongly encourage you to evacuate. We are preparing and I have the state emergency response team preparing for the largest evacuation we have seen probably since Hurricane Irma in 2017.”

FEMA Administrator Deane Criswell said FEMA is “fully prepared” for Milton.

We started planning this days ago, even before it was formed. “We know it’s heading straight toward Florida,” she said on ABC’s “This Week.”

“We will move more resources there to support their needs, but we have a lot of people in Florida already,” she added.

Milton will be the second major hurricane to hit the United States in two weeks after Hurricane Helen, which killed at least 225 people across the South and caused up to $250 billion in damage and damage according to AccuWeather estimates. So far, 13 storms have formed across the Atlantic in the six-month hurricane season, and four hurricanes have struck the United States, including Helen and Beryl in July, causing power outages in Houston, the fourth-most populous US city. .

Article content

As Milton moves east across the Gulf, the hurricane will be fueled by very warm waters with almost no adverse weather conditions, though it may weaken somewhat due to dry air, Jack Bevin, a senior hurricane specialist at the National Hurricane Center, said in an analysis of the forecast. . Wind shear as it approaches the shore.

For Milton, the “worst case scenario” is for the storm to hit the Florida coast just north of Tampa, said Brandon Buckingham, a meteorologist at commercial weather company AccuWeather Inc. Hurricanes rotate counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere, so in the Northern Hemisphere, such a spot would push Milton all of its worst storms and winds into Tampa Bay, putting the city and region at risk. More than 3.2 million people live in Tampa-St. Petersburg region.

The effects could be worse because Helen’s winds and waves wiped out many beaches along Florida’s west coast, making the area more vulnerable to Milton’s force.

Milton will likely push hurricane-force winds through Florida’s citrus-growing regions when it comes ashore on Oct. 9, said Ryan Truchalot, president of commercial forecasting firm WeatherTiger.

Article content

Listen on Zero: Climate change ‘holds the weather dice against us’

Chuck Watson, a disaster modeler at Enkei Research, predicted on Sunday that the economic impact would be between $50 billion and $75 billion. Peak winds remain south of Tampa and Orlando, but if the storm moves just 50 miles north, his models show it could become a $150 billion storm. “We’re on a knife’s edge here,” he wrote.

Water temperatures throughout the Gulf of Mexico range from about 1 F to 5 F above normal, AccuWeather Meteorologist Isaac Longley said. Milton will cross the warm Loop Current in the Gulf of Mexico before reaching Florida, a swath of water that also strengthened Hurricane Helen as it approached the state. The warm waters will “fuel” Milton and it will likely become a Category 4 hurricane by the morning of October 8.

The Loop Current is an area of ​​warm water that moves from the Caribbean Sea to the Gulf of Mexico, then emerges through the Florida Strait and flows into the Gulf Stream.

Milton will likely make landfall near Tampa Bay around 5 p.m. on Oct. 9 as a Category 3, Longley said.

Article content

The Hurricane Center stresses that it is still too early to determine where Milton will hit, but residents along the Florida coastline need to be prepared.

“Regardless of the details, there is growing confidence that a powerful hurricane with life-threatening risks will impact portions of Florida’s west coast around the middle of this week,” Bevin said.

In addition to Milton, meteorologists are also tracking Hurricanes Kirk and Leslie in the far Atlantic Ocean. Kirk is expected to make landfall on October 9 in France as a post-tropical storm. The storm is also producing large waves across the ocean, affecting the United States and Canada as well as islands in the Caribbean.

(Updates with DeSantis’ comments begin in the fifth paragraph, and Enki Research forecasts in the eighteenth paragraph.)

Article content