October 7, 2024
3 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 likely 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 properly underway for a second damaging storm, Hurricane Milton.
Milton is presently a Class 5 storm 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 influence 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 severe storm in a couple of century, though the area, which is house to greater than three million folks, isn’t 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 turned 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 deliver a variety of threats to west-central Florida: robust winds that would end in energy outages lasting as much as every week, storm surges of eight to 12 ft, rainfall totaling 5 to 10 inches, with as much as 15 inches in some areas, and probably 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 severe 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 realm of native defenses reminiscent of sand dunes, leaving the area extra susceptible to future surges. All instructed, Hurricane Milton might trigger twice as a lot storm surge round Tampa Bay as Hurricane Helene did.
The realm can also be notably susceptible to flooding proper now, each alongside the shoreline and farther inland. Even earlier than Helene’s hit, the realm noticed a very moist summer season, Davis says, leaving the bottom saturated and rivers working excessive. Then got here Helene’s surge and downpours; the storm additionally scattered particles and pushed sand into the realm’s stormwater drains, leaving the area even much less in a position to soak up extra water.
Among 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 fast intensification, throughout which a storm’s quickest sustained winds improve in pace by no less than 35 miles per hour throughout a 24-hour interval. As of noon EDT on October 7, the storm’s most sustained winds had been gusting at 160 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 endure fast intensification. And though storms that endure fast intensification additionally typically quickly lose steam, they have a tendency to unfold out as they do, subjecting extra folks to their harm.
The specifics are unlikely to considerably change the severity of hazards the area experiences, nonetheless, Davis says. And Tampa Bay is understood to be notably susceptible to severe hurricanes, which it usually experiences solely peripherally. “We have been brushed by many, many, many, many storms,” Davis says. However the final time a significant 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 doubtless break that development.
After hitting the west-central coast of Florida, Hurricane Milton is predicted to cross the state after which observe throughout the Atlantic Ocean. Bermuda would possibly see results over the weekend, however the storm is just not anticipated to hit communities within the U.S. past Florida.
In Florida, nonetheless, 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.”
