Florida Threatened by Hurricane Milton quickly

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(Bloomberg) — Hurricane Milton is threatening to grow stronger, possibly reaching Category 4 strength, and could prompt the biggest evacuations in seven years as it heads toward Florida’s Gulf Coast and Tampa.

The storm has the potential to cause billions of dollars in damage and heap more suffering on the country and region still reeling from Hurricane Helene less than two weeks ago.

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Winds peaked in Milton at 85 miles per hour, up from 45 mph earlier, which means it’s getting faster. Those conditions, when hurricane-force winds strengthen to 35 mph in 24 hours or less, can have devastating consequences for those in its path, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. Before landfall on October 9, the storm was on track for 145-mph winds. It’s likely to come closer to a relatively weak coast but could still rip roofs off buildings, uproot trees and cause long-lasting power outages.

Some computer models say Milton could be a Category 5 because it’s so close to Florida. In addition, while compact today, Milton is likely to become a major storm on land, “with very dangerous impacts spread over a large area,” said Eric Blake, a forecaster at the center.

Governor Ron DeSantis has declared an emergency in 51 counties and said the entire Florida peninsula on the Gulf side has the potential to suffer from the main effects of the storm surge, which is likely to pick up sometime in the afternoon on October 9.

“You’re going to have a major power outage,” DeSantis said at a news conference, adding that utilities are putting resources into power restoration because the outages could be worse than those caused by Helene. “We also have almost 6,000 ambulances ready to help,” he said.

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In a statement Sunday, President Joe Biden said he had been briefed on the storm’s potential impact and federal efforts to position rescue resources.

Mexico has issued a hurricane watch for the northern coast of the Yucatan Peninsula, which Milton will predict.

“I urge Floridians to complete their storm preparations now, make your plans,” said Kevin Guthrie, executive director of the state’s Division of Emergency Management, in a video briefing. “I strongly urge you to evacuate. We are preparing and I have a state emergency response team preparing for the largest possible evacuation since Hurricane Irma in 2017.

Deanne Criswell, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said FEMA is “extremely prepared” for Milton.

“We’ve started planning today, even before it was formed. We know we’re going to Florida right away,” he said on ABC’s This Week.

“We will move more resources there to support the need, but there are already too many people in Florida,” he added.

Milton will be the second major hurricane to hit the US in two weeks after Helene, which killed at least 225 people in the South and caused $250 billion in losses and damages according to AccuWeather estimates. So far, 13 storms have formed in the Atlantic Ocean during the six-month hurricane season and four hurricanes have hit the US, including Helene and Beryl in July that knocked out power in Houston, the fourth most populous city in the US.

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As Milton moves east across the Gulf, it will be supported by warm water and almost no adverse atmospheric conditions, Jack Beven, a senior hurricane specialist at the National Hurricane Center, said there is an analysis of forecasts, although it may reduce the dry air. and the wind shears as it approaches the shore.

For Milton, the “worst-case scenario” is that the storm will hit the Florida coast north of Tampa, said Brandon Buckingham, meteorologist at commercial forecaster AccuWeather Inc. that point Milton will push all the worst storms and winds to Tampa Bay, the danger of the city and the region. More than 3.2 million people live in the Tampa-St. Petersburg area.

The effect is likely to be worse as Helene’s winds and waves eroded much of Florida’s west coast, leaving the region more vulnerable to Milton’s strength.

Milton will likely push hurricane-force gusts across the orange-rich Florida region when it comes ashore on Oct. 9, said Ryan Truchelut, president of commercial forecaster WeatherTiger.

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Listen to Zero: Climate Change ‘Loads the Weather Dice Against Us’

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

Across the Gulf of Mexico, water temperatures are running anywhere from 1F to nearly 5F above normal, said Isaac Longley, a meteorologist with AccuWeather. Milton will cross the warm Loop Current in the Gulf of Mexico before reaching Florida, a patch of water that also boosted Hurricane Helene as it approaches the state. Warm water will “fuel” Milton and it will become a Category 4 storm by the morning of October 8.

The Loop Current is an area of ​​warm water that rises from the Caribbean into the Gulf of Mexico, then exits through the Straits of Florida and flows into the Gulf Stream.

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

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The hurricane center stressed it was too early to determine if Milton would make landfall, but residents along Florida’s coastline should prepare.

“Regardless of the details, there is increasing confidence that a powerful hurricane with life-threatening danger will affect parts of the west coast of Florida by the middle of this week,” Beven said.

In addition to Milton, forecasters are also tracking hurricanes Kirk and Leslie in the far Atlantic. Kirk is forecast to make landfall on October 9 in France as a post-tropical storm. The storm also produced large waves in the ocean, affecting the US and Canada as well as islands in the Caribbean.

(Update with DeSantis comments starting in the fifth paragraph, Enki Research’s damage forecast in the 18th paragraph.)

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