How bad will Hurricane Milton be?
The forecasts are dire indeed, and after what happened in North Carolina I hope people take them very seriously and evacuate:
Hurricane and storm surge warnings are now posted along Florida’s western Gulf Coast, where the storm poses threats of life-threatening storm surge, destructive winds and flooding rainfall by midweek.
“If Milton stays on its course this will be the most powerful hurricane to hit Tampa Bay in over 100 years. No one in the area has ever experienced a hurricane this strong before,” warned the National Weather Service in Tampa Bay. …
A hurricane warning is in effect along much of the western Gulf Coast of Florida from Bonita Beach northward to the mouth of the Suwannee River, including Tampa Bay. …
A storm surge warning stretches from Flamingo northward to the Suwannee River, including Charlotte Harbor and Tampa Bay. This means a life-threatening water rise from storm surge is possible in the area, generally within 36 hours. …
M?ilton more than doubled the criteria for rapid intensification, and the National Hurricane Center has called its intensification “explosive”. Its winds increased from 65 mph at 10 a.m. CDT on Sunday to 160 mph at 11 a.m. CDT Monday. That 95 mph wind increase in just over 24 hours is among the extreme bouts of rapid intensification ever observed in the Atlantic Basin.
Landfall is expected in Florida on Wednesday. Please stay safe, everyone.
I believe they will take the warnings seriously. After it hits FL, where will it go? With the dimwits in FEMA in charge, that is a separate disaster in itself.
Just read the exchange between Peter Doucy and what’s her name in the WH. He really put the screws to her. Answer back was “its disinformation”
Florida disaster management has a neat map to find out what storm zone you are in.
https://floridadisaster.maps.arcgis.com/apps/instant/lookup/index.html?appid=aa18a2d8737c4d66bb6434a09e17203a
I checked where my grandmother used to live in Ft. Myers and that was zone A. My aunt would have been in zone C and she only lived two blocks from my grandmother. Both houses survived Hurricane Charley in 2004 as well as the storm that hit Ft Myers a few years ago. Both houses were Old Florida construction – solid, one story buildings.
I heard one FL briefing where the person said if you lived in a house that had been built under specific hurricane building codes, you were probably ok to stay if you don’t need power and supplies and were out of the flood zone. But, if you were in a certain flood zone, a mobile home or have specific medical needs, then you needed to start packing.
Here is the link for more information for Florida
https://www.floridadisaster.org/disaster-updates/Hurricanemilton/
Milton is a city-drowner, given half a chance: St. Pete, Tampa and their surrounding coastal towns out to a 30 to 40 mi. radius probably need to go, now (simply on account of the numbers needing moved), empty out, but sadly that’s unlikely to happen. God help ’em, cause the Feds for damn sure won’t be.
It’s way sad that more folk don’t reference Hunga Tonga, the ginormous undersea volcanic eruption of 2 years ago. Big enough to literally change the climate.
We need far more super storm, flood, fire, drought preparation and engineering mitigation. Both in advance and especially afterward in any rebuild.
As I said in open thread, this is going to destroy Tampa/St Pete with 15 to 20 ft surge and 120 mph winds, and cause huge damage in Orlando. My efforts to convince my daughter in Orlando to come here are failing.
Mike just reported the pressure dropped below 900mb…only 2 others in the record have been below 900
Florida does a highly competent job of storm preparation and warning. For this one, people who are told to evacuate should do that.
My nephew and his wife (and their micro brewery — Ft. Meyers Brewery — ) are on the left shoulder of this storm. That’s the worst part.
Two years ago they were on the edge of the storm. He got out the next day, saw what was needed, and put a couple of washers and a dryer on a trailer and went around doing laundry for people. No charge. What a guy!
I’m afraid this time there won’t even be roads left to drive around on. Good luck, Ft. Meyers is in for a real storm surge.
Pray for my nephew and his brewery. And next time you get there, drop by and tell him I sent you.
Just up Daniels from Norman Love’s in Gateway, F? If so, been there some years back, good stuff!
physicsguy:
What is the significance of pressure dropping below 900mb? What happens, and why?
I’ll take a stab at that IrishOtter: it’s a low pressure cyclone; the lower the pressure the higher go the windspeeds as surrounding higher pressure air flows in. The higher the windspeeds over water, the more force to pile water up, plus top that pile with waves. Comes the land, that pile of water pushes right on in, overtopping whatever is before it, and wind damage snaps trees, poles, rips off roofs, spawns tornadoes, blows debris, etc. Baaaaad juju.
Milton now at 180mph. Is there a CAT 6?
–physicsguy
Hurricane Donna (1960) was my Florida baptism of fire. It reached peak winds of 160 mph.
We’ll see if Hurricane Milton “justifies the ways of God to men” (John Milton).
My yard floods when a king tide occurs during low pressure. Not wind, just less air pressure = higher tide. I presume that is also in play here.
IO,
What sdferr said, plus this puts Milton a special place in the meteorology history books.
Will FEMA once again obstruct recovery efforts, as its doing in the aftermath of Helene?
GB – I don’t think the governor will let them take over. Check out the latest in preparations … It is a long and detailed list of who is doing what in Florida.
https://www.floridadisaster.org/news-media/news/20241007/
“Is there a CAT 6?”
I’ve seen it being described as a “mega CAT 5”.
Good luck and keep safe…
There’s a blogger named Levi Cowan who began his hurricane blog when he was in university, and for a dozen years has continued it out into his professional life as a meteorologist. When there’s a named storm, he puts out daily focused updates on what the models say, what the expectations are, and a good detailed view of the weather picture surrounding the storm. 1.5x works well. He refers to the National Hurricane Center and is very clear that they are the authority to follow. FWIW, I used to go to Levi’s blog first, when I had rigs operating offshore and a storm on the way.
https://www.tropicaltidbits.com/storminfo/
I think Florida is going to be much better prepared, have a clearer set of expectations, and I fear they’re going to need every bit of it, with this monster.
The LDS Church knows preparedness too, and this is a website they maintain to coordinate volunteer efforts for cleanup.
https://www.crisiscleanup.org/map
Here is what I saw from another commenter:
“Needs can be entered from phone apps by people walking the neighborhoods, or can be called into a call center. Work parties then can sign-in and signal their locations, to get dispatches to go work a specific task, during which if they see other things that need to be done they can enter those into the system. This is the system that the LDS church uses when they send out their own volunteer work parties, but anyone can use it to both enter needs and get tasks to work.”
Just read that Harris is trash talking DeSantis. Saying he wouldn’t take his calls. He said he didn’t know she called. And, just why should he? I mean Biden is still Prez, and they have talked.
huxley
I experienced Donna, but in New England. Lots of wind and rain. Speaking of Donna: Dion: Donna the Prima Donna.
My sister lives in Naples, but she was in Miami over the weekend. I talked with her Sunday night. She said that as the hurricane was 800 miles from landfall on Sunday night, she should be able to drive OK to Naples on Monday morning. Which she did. Neither weather nor traffic were yet prohibitive.
Her condo in Naples is on the third floor, which means she isn’t going to get flooded out. Her stepson invited her to come up to New Hampshire- he and his wife used to live in the Naples area- but she decided that on the third floor, she could ride the storm out. I agree with her. She’s done it before. She will move her electric car to the third floor of the parking garage.
We live, literally, not even a mile away from Disney property, and the eye looks to go right over our house – which is a manufactured home, nonetheless.
I don’t think we’ll see anything as catastrophic as what might happen on the coast, being inland and all, so we won’t evacuate the area. But my husband, our kids, and I are gonna stay in a nearby hotel Wednesday night just to play it safe.
Huxley, I lived in Ft Myers during Donna. The eye passed over our house of old Florida construction – no glass windows- screens and metal shutters. The wind battered in one direction and then eirie silence. Then it started again in the other direction battering the shutters. Like being in a hard struck drum.
Are the disasters in the south an opportunity for vote suppression? The magic eight ball says yes!
@SHIREHOME …
Yup, he gave a big beautiful middle finger to her attempt to get another ‘watch me cosplay as POTUS’ photo op.
His people have put out the word, I’ve seen some reports that name staffers, that they won’t put her calls through to him.
Later, somebody in the Biden White House put out a press release indicating that DeSantis and Biden did have a conversation about Helene and Milton.
https://instapundit.com/676633/
If Gov. DeSantis has had direct conversations with the president and the head of FEMA, why would he need to talk to Harris? DeSantis says the president and FEMA have approved every request he’s made. He’s too busy for political nonsense at this moment.
huxley
Mine to. Had only been in Miami 2-2.5 years, and in a new home in SW Miami. We rented a cottage just before that – between Flagler & NE 1st, and some major Ave around 20+- and another Ave or whatever. Old man owned that parcel, with some rentals and a nursery that he hired me to work part time in. Was 12-13 years old, so that may have been the first law I broke (??).
He told me he had come to Miami years before as a young man…walking the beach from up north (?). Had some serious scars on his forearms. Said a hurricane hit, it started blowing him around, even blew him off trees he was trying to hold onto. Had a rope for a belt and managed to tie it around both wrists after looping around a palm tree. Wind got stronger – said he was like a flag flapping in the wind naked, since the wind blew his cloths off. Forearm scars were from flapping in the wind…
Another word salad pass the forks
I have family in Ft Meyers. I fear for them. They say they are hunkered down, but this is more than they bargained for, I think.
Tuesday morning update:
track the same, intensity models down some…thank God. For my daughter, now a strong 1 over Orlando, down from a 3.
Interesting thing: this morning woke up to clear skies, low temp, and low humidity here in Jax. Forecast was for clouds, rain, until Milton went through. I checked the surface map and the front has moved almost down to Miami. I don’t think this was expected and I wonder what it may do to the forecast maps.
Milton….. Paradise Lost????
If your people are a few miles inland from the shore and tidal creeks, F, and hence the surge water, they should be ok. They’ll probably see cat 1 hurricane force winds, unlikely but possible cat 2 winds. The scary unknowns in Ft. Myers position relative to the storm is tornado, and that’s down to good or ill fortune, with very small footprints, we hope.
More like Florida Agonistes one might think.
– – – – – – – – –
“…forks…”
Indeed, but maybe that should be “salad tongs”?
(Da’ woman soitenly has a way wid woids…)
sdferr:
Thanks for the explanation/information. Very interesting!
physicsguy, I could be wrong, but just looking at the Hurricane Center’s projected track, it looks like the center might hit land just south of Tampa Bay. If so, bad news for Bradenton and Sarasota, but this would limit the massive damage from a direct hit into Tampa Bay.
As Mike says (spaghettimodels.com), a 5 mile shift in center landfall will change where the surge will be worse, but has no change on everything else. Unfortunately the models can’t predict such fine changes.
I was hoping for a 50 mile shift south, good for Tampa, bad for Ft Meyers etc. But model tracks very tight and consistent. Just taking the average of the model tracks show an uncertainty of about 50 miles. A 10 mile shift in the center line is really meaningless.
We have dear friends in the suburbs south of Orlando who move there at the beginning of 2021. The wife tells me the roads out of town are a parking lot, so they’re riding it out. Their daughter and grandson are in their apartment twelve miles away and are riding it out as well. I have a cousin in Melbourne with whom I’m not in regular contact. He’s ridden these out before, so I suspect he’s prepared.
In this case, even a small shift south could save Tampa. The bay is shallow. If the storm center goes straight in, winds will drive the storm surge into that shallow basin and destroy everything. If it goes slightly south, the winds would be OUT of the bay instead of IN.
We are hunkering and riding it out in Naples, and praying that folks in Tampa, st. Pete, Bradenton, and Sarasota have taken precautions and will be safe. It’s unbelievable that Harris is playing politics with this.. Thank God we have a governor who is competent and does his job.
ArtDeco,
My daughter is 2 miles north of Disney in Winter Garden. Current Orlando intensity is strong Cat 1; we’ll see how that updates later today. She’s on a 3rd floor in a very strong building. My big concern is that she parks her car well away from trees. She knows she’s going to be out of power and has planned. She went through many multiday outages in CT in the winter growing up. Much worse there as your house creeps down to the freezing mark.