October 7, 2024
4 min learn
Nonetheless Reeling from Hurricane Helene, Florida Braces for Second Main Storm
Components of Florida nonetheless recovering from Hurricane Helene will face their second main storm in simply two weeks
Residents of Pinellas County, Florida, fill sandbags at John Chesnut Sr. Park in Palm Harbor, Fla., on October 6, 2024. Florida’s governor has declared a state of emergency on October 5 as forecasters warned that Hurricane Milton was anticipated to make landfall later this week.
Bryan R. Smith/AFP through Getty Pictures
Editor’s Observe (10/7/24): This story will probably be up to date because the state of affairs unfolds.
In components of Florida nonetheless cleansing up from Hurricane Helene’s harm lower than two weeks in the past, preparations are nicely underway for a second damaging storm, Hurricane Milton.
Milton is presently a Class 5 storm with 174 mile-per-hour most sustained winds off the coast of Mexico’s Yucatán peninsula. It has quickly intensified and seems to be heading northeast, straight towards the western coast of Florida, with the worst impression presently centered round Tampa. The primary of its rains are anticipated to reach in Florida late on October 8, with the storm itself making landfall the following day. This can be Tampa Bay’s first direct hit from a critical storm in a couple of century, though the area, which is house to greater than three million individuals, is not any stranger to hurricane harm.
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“This is a very serious situation,” says Rick Davis, a meteorologist on the Nationwide Climate Service’s Tampa Bay workplace. “It’s going to affect a lot of people in the state of Florida.”
Milton grew to become a Class 5 hurricane on October 7, 2024, because it continued to accentuate over the Gulf of Mexico.
CIRA/NOAA/NESDIS/STAR GOES-East
He says that Hurricane Milton is predicted to carry a variety of threats to west-central Florida: robust winds that would lead to energy outages lasting as much as per week, storm surges of eight to 12 toes, rainfall totaling 5 to 10 inches, with as much as 15 inches in some areas, and doubtlessly tornadoes. That’s all taking place lower than two weeks after Hurricane Helene, which made landfall greater than 100 miles north of Tampa Bay however nonetheless wrought critical harm within the area, together with inflicting the best storm surge since recordkeeping started in 1947.
Tampa Bay is inherently susceptible to storm surges as a result of its offshore waters are fairly shallow, leaving nowhere for water to go however inland. Furthermore, Hurricane Milton is predicted to reach at a proper angle and hit Florida’s coast head-on. Whereas an arrival at a extra indirect angle can push water alongside the coast, a perpendicular association causes a steeper surge as a result of it extra completely pushes water inland. The latter would “pile up water faster and faster and faster and not let it recede,” Davis says.
As well as, Helene stripped the world of native defenses resembling sand dunes, leaving the area extra susceptible to future surges. All informed, Hurricane Milton might trigger twice as a lot storm surge round Tampa Bay as Hurricane Helene did.
The realm can be significantly susceptible to flooding proper now, each alongside the shoreline and farther inland. Even earlier than Helene’s hit, the world noticed a very moist summer time, Davis says, leaving the bottom saturated and rivers operating excessive. Then got here Helene’s surge and downpours; the storm additionally scattered particles and pushed sand into the world’s stormwater drains, leaving the area even much less in a position to soak up extra water.
A few of the particulars of Hurricane Milton’s arrival are nonetheless unsure: There’s nonetheless time for the storm’s wind depth and precise path into Florida to alter. The hurricane’s depth is especially unpredictable as a result of it underwent a course of known as speedy intensification, throughout which a storm’s quickest sustained winds improve in pace by at the very least 35 miles per hour throughout a 24-hour interval.
Hurricane Milton has blown that definition out of the water. “It went from a Category 1 to a Category 5 in 18 hours,” says Kristen Corbosiero, an atmospheric scientist on the College at Albany. “It’s a really scary situation.”
As of noon EDT on October 7, the storm’s most sustained winds have been blowing at 175 miles per hour; the earlier morning its winds had been simply 65 miles per hour. Local weather change is predicted to extend the variety of storms that bear speedy intensification.
One other concern is that scientists are already seeing indicators that Hurricane Milton is constructing a brand new eyewall, the robust winds that type the guts of a storm, surrounding the present core. Inside a day, this course of could cause the unique eyewall to break down, giving solution to the brand new construction, which permits the storm’s clouds—and harm—to cowl extra floor. “What’s really concerning with these types of eyewall replacement cycles is that the wind field of the storm grows bigger,” Corbosiero says.
The specifics are unlikely to considerably change the severity of hazards the area experiences, nevertheless, Davis says. And Tampa Bay is understood to be significantly susceptible to critical hurricanes, which it sometimes experiences solely peripherally. “We have been brushed by many, many, many, many storms,” Davis says. However the final time a serious hurricane made landfall within the area was in 1921. It hasn’t seen a direct hit from any hurricane in any respect since 1946. Milton will possible break that pattern.
After hitting the west-central coast of Florida, Hurricane Milton is predicted to cross the state after which observe throughout the Atlantic Ocean. Bermuda may see results over the weekend, however the storm shouldn’t be anticipated to hit communities within the U.S. past Florida.
In Florida, nevertheless, the dangers are very actual. “I just want people to take this more seriously than they’ve taken any other storm,” Davis says. “This will be a storm that people will not forget.”
Corbosiero echoes that concern, particularly given Milton coming so shut on the heels of Helene and its harm. “This really does have the likelihood to be the worst disaster in hurricanes in U.S. history,” she says. “It’s that much of a potential dire situation, especially if it makes a direct hit on Tampa or one of the very populated areas along the west coast.”
