Good morning, atmospheric audience. We’re back home into reality and wanted to get back to you guys with some thoughts on this catastrophic situation. But from my initial thoughts from Saturdays post there’s not much more I can add at this point for those who this is impacting. I’d like to say that regardless if Milton hits as a CAT 3 or CAT 5 there won’t be that much of a significant difference. Primarily due to the fact that the wind field of Milton is expanding rapidly. As of 5am tropical force storm force winds expand outward by 125 miles. That number should explode in the next 24 hours.
As of the 8am update, Milton is still a CAT 4 with sustained winds of 155mph and minimum barometric pressure of 915mb. Currently located 250mi SW of Tampa moving NE at 16mph. The last few model runs (GFS, ICON, Euro, NAM) have shown a fair degree of agreement with landfall just south of Tampa by Sarasota. Wherever the exact impact lies, the highest storm surge will be at and just south of the eye.
Expect 10-15 feet of storm surge from Tampa to Sarasota, 8-12 feet around Fort Myers and 5-10 feet around Naples.
Aside from widespread power outages, significant flooding from both heavy rainfall and storm surge, another serious issue that will compound problems is the lack of cleanup from previous hurricane Helene. Piles and piles of furniture, wood, debris and ruined items from peoples homes and businesses are still lying on streets.
ETA of Milton
Landfall looks to be between 2-4am Thursday morning. However, conditions will deteriorate rapidly this afternoon as wind gusts will start kicking up, along with heavy downpours from outside bands. Isolated tornados away from the coast and further inland are possible.
While the frictional effects of land will rapidly weaken Milton once over land, given the shear size and speed, it’ll hold hurricane status as crosses the state. Along I-4 from TB to Orlando up to Daytona could see up to a foot of rain and 60-80mph wind gusts.
The good news, if any is that Milton will move off shore into the SE Atlantic between 11am and 1pm Thursday. The SE coast of Florida will fortunately be spared the worst but don’t let your guard down. Outside bands will lead heavy downpours and possible isolated tornados. Further north from Cape Canaveral up to Charleston could see 3-5 feet of storm surge on back side of Milton.
That’s is for now. As warned this will be a catastrophic event. Milton will be retired and clean up will take weeks and months, perhaps years in certain locations. Prayers for all those in Milton’s path. By the way, we’re not finished just yet. We may have another hit (Nasty Nadine) later this month. I’m tracking all the atmospheric gears so stay tuned, stay bundled up the next few days, keep eyes on the skies the next few nights (auroras still popping up), and lastly don’t forget, weather never sleeps!