Hurricane Milton is traveling at a forward speed around 17 mph. With winds near 120 mph the eye of the storm is roughly 70 miles wide (35 miles from center). The storm is wavering in strength but should be anticipated to maintain this intensity as it makes landfall tonight.
The National Hurricane Center is forecasting just south of the Tampa Bay area as the most likely location for landfall. A few miles in any direction can make a big difference with this track. The greatest storm surge potential is south of the eyewall, extending well below the impact zone. Those who encounter the eye will likely be in strong hurricane force winds for 3 hours.
At 500 PM EDT (2100 UTC), the center of Hurricane Milton was located near latitude 26.9 North, longitude 83.4 West. Milton is moving toward the northeast near 17 mph (28 km/h), and this motion is expected to continue through tonight. A turn toward the east-northeast is expected on Thursday, followed by a turn toward the east on Friday.
On the forecast track, the center of Milton will make landfall near or just south of the Tampa Bay region this evening, move across the central part of the Florida peninsula overnight, and emerge off the east coast of Florida on Thursday.
Maximum sustained winds are near 120 mph (195 km/h) with higher gusts. Milton is a category 3 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale. Milton could still be a major hurricane when it reaches the coast of west-central Florida this evening, and it will remain a hurricane while it moves across central Florida through Thursday. Milton is forecast to weaken over the western Atlantic and become extratropical by Thursday night.
Hurricane-force winds extend outward up to 35 miles (55 km) from the center and tropical-storm-force winds extend outward up to 255 miles (405 km). A WeatherFlow site located in Egmont Channel (XEGM) recently reported a sustained wind speed of 51 mph (82 km/h) with a wind gust of 63 mph (102 km/h). A WeatherFlow site located on the Sunshine Skyway Fishing Pier (XSKY) recently reported a sustained wind speed of 47 mph (76 km/h) with a wind gust of 62 mph (100 km/h). The minimum central pressure based on Air Force Reserve Hurricane Hunter data is 948 mb (28.00 inches). (more)
While a strong wind threat exists for the Tampa Bay area, residents south of the impact zone should prepare for a long duration storm surge event.
The view from our window as we ride out the storm. The roof of Tropicana Field is destroyed by the winds of #HurricaneMilton. Praying for Tampa Bay and all areas affected. Stay safe, everyone
The roof is a heavy canvas material so it’s not really that strong.
The Tropicana Field roof, made of Teflon-coated fiberglass, was built to withstand winds of up to 115 MPH, according to the Rays’ 2024 media guide.
https://www.si.com/mlb/rays-say-damage-tropicana-field-hurricane-milton-may-take-weeks-to-assess
Get ready. This, if accurate, will make the Hurricanes look like a day at the spa.. The Death Cult is pulling out the big guns. The geo engineers had their chance. Here come the EMPs.
https://www.foxweather.com/earth-space/severe-geomagnetic-storm-power-satellite-radio-blackouts-milton
It was the only kind of storm that ever made sense.
“My fellow Americans . . .”
I don’t know if it’s this one though.
10 11?
111?
Too many Lucy’s with the football to get that excited or expectational.
Everyone should be prepared for weeks without power, water, connectivity in any event, after watching people suffer through Helene, and now on to Milton.
Construction crane in St Pete down
Well I just lost power.
Get your flashlight!
And with it find your supplies for surviving without electricity
Candles are lit on top of flea market dinner plates. Flashlight at the ready. It would be nice to be able to try to sleep for a few while the AC dissipates, but the fear of tornadoes and falling trees will keep me awake like Hunter trying to remember who he lent his Laptop(s) to..
I am the same way when hurricanes hit south Texas. I would stay up all night watching the tall pines around my house swaying in the high winds, being ready for a roof leak or other damage. Meanwhile my wife has slept through the 4-5 hurricanes we’ve been through without ever waking up! Stay safe!
Thanks, Bubbs. A scrub oak is keeping a big sand pine from falling on the back corner of the Master bedroom as we speak..
Guess I won’t be sleeping tonight as my entire immediate family lives in Tampa and its surrounds. Last communication from them was at 4:14 pm. “So far so good. Only 10 more hours to go.”
The home of my nephew was flooded with 3-4 feet of water by Hurricane Helene. Not even close to recovering from that hurricane and now this one. Living in an Air B&B that his flood insurance only gives him $25 a day for.
My mistake in order to pass the time when I hear from them was to listen/watch among other things, Greg Hunter at USA Watchdog.com. Not for the weak.
I’m used to that stuff, but the blue and clear skies here in W. PA. were covered with chemtrails all last week. Tic tac toe. Every day. Nothing on my farm-let grew except except for underground crops this year. Except for a few types, even the apples were diseased. I’ve never experienced anything like it.
https://usawatchdog.com/world-at-war-with-criminals-controlling-weather-dane-wigington/
The tomatoes didn’t thrive, the peppers were small and late. The squash died. The only thing that did well was the berries.
Very abnormal
Had a bizarre growing season myself.
Yep. Same thing here. Not one zucchini. But a friend of mine not even 10 miles away asked me if we lived on the same planet when we talked about our gardens. I guess there is something about my deep green forested valley with lots of wildlife that from the air, looks like a good dumping ground for poisons.
Actually, the chemtrails are heavy even less than 20 miles south. Many in my fellowship are saying wtf?
Same here in Louisiana.
Cherry tomatoes barely produced this Summer in the same compost soil they thrived in last year.
Yellow banana bell peppers stunted while bumper crop last year. Green Bell peppers started fine, then faded too early.
But the herbs are doing pretty well. And the egg plants are good.
Wasn’t worms, flys or bugs.
I grow lots of Tabasco peppers (doing great this year) grind’em in a coffee grinder, then boil’em, strain’ em and pour the hot fluid in a hand spray bottle that I use to spray all the veg plants.
It works great for me over commercial and harmful pesticides.
No bugs or welted leaves either and the squirrels and blue jays don’t like the pepper juice on the produce, as well.
Hmmmm?
Thanks for the info on the organic bug spray. Grow lots of peppers myself along with tomatoes & berries. I wonder if it will work on citrus, have a heck of a time with leafminers on my Eureka lemon tree although they don’t bother the oranges or Meyer lemons.
Interesting I’m in Illinois these days and gardens around here this year are horrible. Even my tomatoes are garbage.
I think peak storm surge has passed there on the west coast and was not nearly as bad as forecast, only about 2-3 feet in the Tampa / Clearwater area and 5-6 feet down in Fort Meyers and Naples
NOAA’s tide gages page:
CO-OPS Map – NOAA Tides & Currents
click on a push-pin and then right-click “Station Home” and open in new tab, tide graph is down the page
storm surge is the difference between the red observed line and the blue forecast line
A bit of good news …thanks.
LOL. I just got a pop-up that today might be “World Mental Health Day.” I couldn’t make this up.
Interestingly, at Port Canaveral, it appears that a large oscillatory seiche has been induced by some force, I can’t think what that might be
… and it’s a rather low-frequency oscillation, having a period on the order of an hour or so
I’d expect that to require a large, enclosed body of water like the big estuary at Canaveral, but the tide-gage map shows the gage is in the outer harbor, a much smaller water body
hmmm, I’ll check other tide gages to see if it was a regional ocean phenomenon
ah — zooming in, it appears there’s a canal connecting the harbor to that inner large estuary / Banana River in that Merritt Island area … I guess that’s to let local small-boat traffic in and out of the inlet at the south end of the Cape
so that squares with an expectation of a large water body sustaining a low-frequency seiche
anyone care to speculate on the cause?
any local experience?
… looking at Google Maps, it appears the next inlet for all that Banana River – Indian River inner lagoon system is all the way down at Sebastian Inlet
hard to believe all the small-boaters in Cocoa Beach and Melbourne Beach have so far to go in either direction to get their boats out into the ocean
I know this is probably not the best time to ask but Ukraine could use another $100 billion in aid!
🙏🙏🙏
I hope everyone is doing all right. Must be scary as heck to be in your home and have the roof sucked off. The tornados look really nasty.
Luck was on our side. The eye wasn’t even wrapped when it made landfall. This storm kinda lands in the cry wolf category. The real problem with these events are often how hard the officials make it for people to return to undamaged or mildly damaged homes. Makes a person want to stay home next time.
Per my kids in Port Charlotte at their location it was all over at 0400.
No surge and power off sometime after 2300 (they were asleep) and back on at 0700.
Woke ever couple of hrs and looked out the window.
I think they got more sleep than I did.
They got lucky.