Hurricane Milton ‘explodes’ into Category 5 storm as Florida braces for ‘life-threatening’ 180-mph winds: Live

A Florida mayor has issued a stark warning to residents that they will die if they do not evacuate as Hurricane Milton rapidly intensified to a Category 5 on Monday evening .

The potential “once in a lifetime” storm is currently bearing down across the Gulf of Mexico and is expected to make landfall in the already storm-battered Sunshine State by Wednesday, hitting the heavily-populated Tampa Bay area first.

With air pressure within the hurricane’s eye dropping to a near record low of 897 millibars, and winds reaching up to 160mph, meteorologists say that Milton is now the fifth most intense Atlantic hurricane on record.

During an interview with CNN on Monday, Tampa mayor Jane Castor told residents: ”I can say without any dramatization whatsoever – if you choose to stay in one of those evacuation areas, you’re gonna die.”

While the chaos wreaked by Hurricane Helene was a “wake-up call”, she said, the impacts of Milton could be “literally catastrophic”.

Meanwhile, sheriffs in nearby Pinellas County Sheriff asked locals to brace for what could be the largest evacuation since 2017 ’s Hurricane Irma .

“This is going to be bad. That’s all you need to know,” Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said during an emergency conference on Sunday. “Everyone just needs to get out.”

Milton is racing towards areas already devastated by Hurricane Helene , which struck northern Florida on 26 September and caused more than 220 deaths across the Southeast.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis warned the storm surge and power outages could exceed those caused by Helene, especially given the leftover debris. “There are some areas with a lot of debris... if hit by a major hurricane, it’s going to dramatically increase damage,” he said.