Hurricane Milton rapidly strengthens with Florida coast in its sights

MIAMI — Milton intensified into a Category 1 hurricane Sunday, threatening to grow even stronger as it aims for Florida’s Gulf Coast, including the Tampa Bay area.
The storm has the potential to cause billions of dollars in damage and heap more misery on a state and region still reeling from Hurricane Helene less than two weeks ago.
Milton’s top winds reached 85 miles per hour, up from 45 mph earlier, meaning it’s rapidly intensifying, according to the National Hurricane Center’s Sunday evening update. That situation, in which a storm’s winds strengthen by 35 mph in 24 hours or less, can have dangerous consequences for people in its path, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. The storm is on course for 125-mph winds capable of tearing roofs off buildings and snapping trees by landfall on Oct. 9.
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Gov. Ron DeSantis has declared an emergency in 35 counties and predicted there would be worse power outages than Helene caused. In a statement Sunday, President Joe Biden said he had been briefed on the storm’s potential impact and federal efforts to position life-saving resources.
“It’s a scary situation,” said Brandon Buckingham, a meteorologist at commercial-forecaster AccuWeather Inc. “We expect by late in the day Tuesday or Tuesday night conditions to really begin to deteriorate; during the day on Wednesday will be the most impactful time. Do not take this lightly.”
Deanne Criswell, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said FEMA was “absolutely ready” for Milton.
“We have started planning for this days ago, even before it formed. We know that it’s headed straight towards Florida,” she said on ABC’s “This Week.”
“We will move more resources in there to support their needs, but we have a lot of people in Florida already,” she added.
Milton would be the second major hurricane to hit the U.S. in two weeks following Helene, which killed at least 225 people across the South and caused as much as $250 billion in losses and damages by AccuWeather’s estimates. So far, 13 storms have formed across the Atlantic Ocean in the six-month hurricane season and four hurricanes have hit the U.S., including Helene and Beryl in July that shut down power in Houston, the fourth-most populous US city.
As Milton moves eastward across the Gulf, it will be fueled by very warm water and almost no adverse atmospheric conditions, Jack Beven, a senior hurricane specialist at the National Hurricane Center, said in a forecast analysis, though it may weaken somewhat from dry air and wind shear as it nears the shore.
Milton is currently a small storm, so it will be compact. However, wherever it hits would be devastated. A year ago, Hurricane Otis, also quite small but strong, killed at least 50 people and led to widespread damage in Acapulco, Mexico.
For Milton, “the worst-case scenario” would be for the storm to hit the Florida coast just north of Tampa, Buckingham said. Hurricanes spin counter-clockwise in the northern hemisphere, so in such a spot Milton would push all of its worst storm surge and winds into Tampa Bay, endangering the city and region. More than 3.2 million people live in the Tampa-St. Petersburg region.
The effects may be even worse because Helene’s winds and surge wiped out many beaches along Florida’s west coast, leaving the area more vulnerable to Milton’s power.
Milton will likely push hurricane-strength wind gusts across Florida’s citrus-growing areas when it comes ashore on Oct. 9, said Ryan Truchelut, president of commercial forecaster Weather Tiger LLC.
Chuck Watson, a disaster modeler at Enki Research, on Sunday predicted an economic impact of between $30 billion and $50 billion, down from his prior estimate of damage and losses potentially exceeding $200 billion.
The hurricane center stresses it’s still too early to say for certain where Milton will strike, but residents along the shoreline in Florida need to prepare.
“Regardless of the details, there is increasing confidence that a powerful hurricane with life-threatening hazards will be affecting portions of the Florida west coast around the middle of this week,” Beven said.