Rewriting the record books today and poised to pulverize the Florida coast later this week, Milton has exploded in the Gulf in a way no hurricane has in recorded history.
Milton’s two-day transformation into a Category 5 storm sharpens an already extreme surge, wind, and rain threat to the Florida peninsula, including Tampa Bay.
As of early Monday afternoon, Milton is located about 720 miles west-southwest of Tampa. Hurricane Hunters aircraft investigating the storm today have borne witness to an intensification streak with only a handful of recorded parallels anywhere in the world, as maximum sustained winds rose from Category 2 strength early Monday morning to a Category 5 by noon.
Aircraft observations currently support sustained winds of at least 175 mph in its compact core, and Milton should remain a Category 4 or 5 hurricane through Tuesday.
A 'truly exceptional' threat that demands your attention
The words “Category 5 hurricane” alone should let you know that the threat from Milton to Florida is truly exceptional, particularly as the NHC forecast track continues to target west-central Florida.
This region between Venice and Crystal River does not have the living memory of a direct impact from a major hurricane.
In the last day, Milton has already strengthened more quickly than all but two Atlantic hurricanes in history, and joins Michael as the only other October Category 5 ever in the Gulf of Mexico.
In just over two days’ time, it has also reached or exceeded Wilma’s record sprint in 2005 from a tropical depression to a Category 5.
All this to say Milton is not a normal, garden-variety late-season hurricane threat to Florida’s Gulf Coast. While Milton’s phantasmagoric strengthening further raises the stakes of an already grim impacts forecast for Florida, the overall track forecast remains little changed from the weekend.
Where Hurricane Milton is tracking: Don't count on any weakening to help diminish disaster
Milton is still expected to move due east through Tuesday afternoon, when it should pass just north of the Yucatan Peninsula. Milton deviating south and actually scraping or moving over the Yucatan is a slight possibility, one that would throw Florida a modicum of lifeline by weakening the storm while it remains in a favorable environment. I wouldn’t count on it, though.
Late Tuesday, Milton will turn more northeast as it enters a channel of steering winds aloft between western Caribbean high pressure and a strong trough of upper-level low pressure over the U.S. East Coast, then turn back more east-northeast late Wednesday and early Thursday as it gets swept up by a west-to-east streak of strong winds in the jet stream.
Exactly when and how sharply those turns happen will dictate where Milton reaches the coast.
It’s not possible to know this far out exactly where landfall will occur. The NHC track is centered on the Tampa Bay region, but could shift as far north as the central Nature Coast or as far south as the Fort Myers area.
(Panhandle readers, I understand your skittishness, but your region will not be directly targeted by Milton.) Within the Nature Coast-Tampa Bay-Southwest Florida range, we don’t know whether the center will go north, south, or over you.
And that means that Central and Southwest Florida need to prepare for the worst.
While Milton may well shed a category or two from maximum sustained winds by late Wednesday as landfall approaches, the shearing influence of the jet stream that may bring that about will also cause the currently diminutive hurricane to expand greatly.
Thus, I do not expect the hurricane to weaken prior to landfall on Wednesday evening, just to exchange some of its highest maximum winds for expanding the size of the windfield. Milton won’t be as gargantuan as Helene, but the NHC forecasts hurricane-force winds to extend over an 80-mile swath of the Gulf and tropical-storm-force winds over a 350 mile-wide area immediately prior to Milton reaching Florida, which is larger than an average storm.
Killer storm surge will be far beyond what Helene brought to Florida and may be worst case for Tampa
My point is that once you have a Category 5 hurricane, the amount of energy in flux in the atmosphere is so exorbitant that changes in peak windspeed are immaterial to surge impacts.
We know Milton will push a wall of water across the southeastern Gulf of Mexico that is certain to slam into the west coast of the Florida peninsula late on Wednesday. However, slight shifts in track will make a huge difference in wind and surge outcomes for individual locations that can’t be predicted two days from landfall.
In general, areas that are north of where the center makes landfall at at risk of destructive winds and flooding rainfall, but the primarily offshore (east-to-west) winds there at the peak of the storm will mean limited or no surge, as when Ian or Irma pushed water out of Tampa Bay while passing to the south and east.
The areas along and south of where Milton comes in, especially the areas north or Charlotte Harbor and within 30 or 50 miles where landfall occurs, will see onshore winds and storm surge that will be equal to or worse than anything seen in over 100 years. (For Charlotte Harbor south to Marco Island, severe and life-threatening surge of 5-10 feet is likely, though that should not exceed Ian’s devastating heights.)
As hard as it is to believe, Tampa Bay and vicinity is facing a surge threat well beyond Helene’s carnage, itself the worst since 1921. Peak surge values of 5-8 feet were generally observed in the Bay Area in Helene, and the initial NHC reasonable worst-case values from Milton are 8-12 feet from Anclote Key to roughly Englewood.
Think about the water that poured across coastal Pinellas County and the rest of the west-central Florida and Southwest Florida barrier islands in Helene, then add another person’s height of water on top of that. Is that something you want to be in the way of?
Water kills. We just watched this movie. The sequel is worse, as sequels are.
While the direct path means a lot, hoping to be spared is not a plan. If you get an evacuation order, get out
With the model consensus and NHC forecast straddling Pinellas and Hillsborough counties, hoping that the forecast shifts enough south of Tampa Bay (or Bradenton, or Sarasota) to spare it is not a plan.
The only positive I can see to Milton’s incredible strengthening through mid-day Monday is that a Category 5 hurricane provides the best possible argument and strongest possible motivation to residents of the west-central and Southwest Florida coast to heed the evacuation guidance of your local emergency managers.
If you get an order, you need to leave. It’s as simple as that.
The cavalry is not coming for you in the eyewall of a major hurricane when you’re in 7 feet of water and pinned to your wall by a fridge, or trying to frantically ax a hole in your attic because surge has reached the second story of building, which happened in Tampa during the 1921 hurricane.
It happened then. It could happen again, or worse.
Think carefully about the last two weeks. Think about your neighbors’ experiences in Helene.
Look with your own eyes at the world around you. Make a choice to save your life. Follow your evacuation orders.
If you’re not in an evacuation zone, you don’t need to leave, but it still might make sense to leave west-central and Southwest Florida given your personal circumstances and tolerance for life without power. This forecast has been focused on contextualizing the surge risks to west-central and Southwest Florida, because it’s the threat people need to react to right now to protect life and property.
Of course, widespread hurricane-force wind gusts across the Florida peninsula, flash-flooding rainfall, and even the possibility of significant Atlantic-side surge north of Cape Canaveral are also severe potential impacts of Milton.
I’ll be specifically discussing the possible surge, wind, and rain impacts for Florida in a forecast video later this evening.
In the meantime, today and tomorrow are your days to prepare and if necessary leave west-central and Southwest Florida, so make the time count. Keep watching the skies.
Dr. Ryan Truchelut is chief meteorologist at WeatherTiger, a Tallahassee company providing forensic meteorology expert witness services, and agricultural and hurricane forecasting subscription services. Visit weathertiger.com for more information. Email Truchelut at ryan@weathertiger.com .
This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Hurricane Milton forecast: Got an evacuation order? 'Make a choice to save your life'
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