Tropical System Milton Threatens Florida

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Key Messages:
1. Milton is forecast to quickly intensify while it moves
eastward to northeastward across the Gulf of Mexico and be at or
near major hurricane strength when it reaches the west coast of the
Florida Peninsula mid week.

2. There is an increasing risk of life-threatening storm surge and
wind impacts for portions of the west coast of the Florida
Peninsula beginning late Tuesday or Wednesday. Residents in these
areas should ensure they have their hurricane plan in place, follow
any advice given by local officials, and check back for updates to
the forecast.

3. Areas of heavy rainfall will impact portions of Florida Sunday
and Monday well ahead of Milton, with heavy rainfall more directly
related to the system expected later on Tuesday through Wednesday
night. This rainfall brings the risk of flash, urban, and areal
flooding, along with minor to moderate river flooding.

Hurricane Milton Discussion Number 10
NWS National Hurricane Center Miami FL AL142024
1000 AM CDT Mon Oct 07 2024

Key Messages:

1. Damaging hurricane-force winds are expected across portions of
the northern coast of the Yucatan Peninsula. A life-threatening
storm surge with damaging waves is also likely along portions of
the northern coast of the Yucatan Peninsula.

2. There is an increasing risk of life-threatening storm surge and
damaging winds for portions of the west coast of the Florida
Peninsula beginning Tuesday night or early Wednesday. Storm Surge
and Hurricane Watches are now in effect for portions of the west
coast of the Florida Peninsula and residents in that area should
follow any advice given by local officials and evacuate if told to
do so.

3. Areas of heavy rainfall will impact portions of Florida today
well ahead of Milton, with heavy rainfall more directly related to
the system expected later on Tuesday through Wednesday night. This
rainfall will bring the risk of considerable flash, urban, and
areal flooding, along with the potential for moderate to major
river flooding.

Hurricane Milton Tropical Cyclone Update...Corrected
NWS National Hurricane Center Miami FL AL142024
1055 AM CDT Mon Oct 07 2024

Corrected for location/distances in the summary section

...MILTON RAPIDLY INTENSIFIES INTO A CATEGORY 5 HURRICANE...

Data from an Air Force Reserve Hurricane Hunter aircraft indicate
that Milton has strengthened to a category 5 hurricane. The
maximum sustained winds are estimated to be 160 mph (250 km/h) with
higher gusts. Data from the aircraft also indicate that the
minimum pressure has fallen to 925 mb (27.31 inches).

Milton strengthened rapidly Monday into a Category 5 hurricane on a path toward Florida, threatening the densely populated Tampa area with a potential direct hit and menacing the same stretch of coastline that was battered by Hurricane Helene less than two weeks ago.

The center of the storm could come ashore Wednesday in the Tampa Bay region, which has not endured a head-on hit by a hurricane in more than a century. Scientists expect the system to weaken slightly before landfall, though it is still forecast to hit as a Category 3 hurricane or higher.

The storm could retain hurricane strength as it churns across central Florida toward the Atlantic Ocean. That would largely spare other states ravaged by Helene, which killed at least 230 people on its path from Florida to the Appalachian Mountains.

“This is the real deal here with Milton,” Tampa Mayor Jane Castor said at a news conference. “If you want to take on Mother Nature, she wins 100% of the time.”

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Monday that it was imperative that debris from Helene be cleared ahead of Milton’s arrival so the pieces cannot become projectiles.

As evacuation orders were issued, forecasters warned of a possible 8- to 12-foot storm surge (2.4 to 3.6 meters) in Tampa Bay and said flash and river flooding could result from 5 to 10 inches (13 to 25 centimeters) of rain in mainland Florida and the Keys, with as much as 15 inches (38 centimeters) in places. The Tampa metro area has a population of more than 3.2 million people.

“It’s a huge population. It’s very exposed, very inexperienced, and that’s a losing proposition,” MIT meteorology professor Kerry Emanuel said. “I always thought Tampa would be the city to worry about most.”

Much of Florida’s west coast was under hurricane and storm surge watches. Florida’s Lake Okeechobee, which often floods during intense storms, was also under a hurricane watch. A hurricane warning was issued for parts of Mexico’s Yucatan state, which expected to get sideswiped.

The Tampa Bay area is still rebounding from Helene and its powerful surge. Twelve people died there, with the worst damage along a string of barrier islands from St. Petersburg to Clearwater.

In the race to clear away the aftermath from Helene, more than 300 vehicles gathered debris Sunday but encountered a locked landfill gate when they tried to drop it off. State troopers used a rope tied to a pickup truck and busted it open, DeSantis said.

“We don’t have time for bureaucracy and red tape,” DeSantis said.

’It’s going to be flying missiles’
Lifeguards in Pinellas County, on the peninsula that forms Tampa Bay, removed beach chairs and other items that could take flight in strong winds. Elsewhere, stoves, chairs, refrigerators and kitchen tables waited in heaps to be picked up.

Sarah Steslicki, who lives in Belleair Beach, said she was frustrated more debris had not been collected sooner.

“They’ve screwed around and haven’t picked the debris up, and now they’re scrambling to get it picked up,” Steslicki said Monday morning. “If this one does hit, it’s going to be flying missiles. Stuff’s going to be floating and flying in the air.”

Hillsborough County, home to Tampa, ordered evacuations for areas adjacent to Tampa Bay and for all mobile and manufactured homes by Tuesday night.

“Yes, this stinks. We know that, and it comes on the heels of where a lot of us are still recovering from Hurricane Helene,” Sheriff Chad Chronister said. “But if you safeguard your families, you will be alive.”

Reluctance to evacuate
Milton’s approach stirred memories of 2017’s Hurricane Irma, when about 7 million people were urged to evacuate Florida in an exodus that jammed freeways and clogged gas stations. Some people who left vowed never to evacuate again.

By Monday morning, some gas stations in the Tampa area had already run out of gas. Fuel continued to arrive in Florida, and the state had amassed hundreds of thousands of gallons of gasoline and diesel fuel, with much more on the way, DeSantis said.

A steady stream of vehicles headed north on Interstate 75, the main highway on the west side of the peninsula, as residents heeded evacuation orders.

Even though Tanya Marunchak’s Belleair Beach home was flooded with more than 4 feet (1.2 meters) of water from Helene, she and her husband were unsure Monday morning if they should evacuate. She wanted to leave, but her husband thought their three-story home was sturdy enough to withstand Milton.

“We lost all our cars, all our furniture. The first floor was completely destroyed,” Marunchak said. “This is the oddest weather predicament that there has ever been.”

Why did Milton intensify so fast
Milton’s wind speed increased by 92 mph (148 kph) in 24 hours — a pace that trails only those of Hurricane Wilma in 2005 and Hurricane Felix in 2007. One reason Milton strengthened so rapidly is its small “pinhole eye,” just like Wilma’s, said Colorado State University hurricane researcher Phil Klotzbach.

The storm likely go through what’s called an eye wall replacement cycle, a natural process that forms a new eye and expands the storm in size but weakens its wind speeds, Klotzbach said.

The Gulf of Mexico is unusually warm right now, so “the fuel is just there,” and Milton probably went over an extra-warm eddy that helped goose it further, said University of Albany hurricane scientist Kristen Corbosiero.

The last hurricane to be a Category 5 at landfall in the mainland U.S. was Michael in 2018.

Widespread cancellations in Florida
With the storm approaching, school activities were called off in Pinellas County, home to St. Petersburg, and schools were being converted into shelters. Officials in Tampa made city garages available to residents hoping to protect their cars from flooding.

Walt Disney World said it was operating normally for the time being. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers planned to move operations to the New Orleans area for the rest of the week leading to Sunday’s NFL game against the Saints, and the Tampa Bay Lightning’s NHL game Monday against the Nashville Predators was canceled.

All road tolls were suspended in west-central Florida. The St. Pete-Clearwater International Airport said it would close after the last flight Tuesday, and Tampa International Airport said it planned to halt airline and cargo flights starting Tuesday. Orlando International Airport, the nation’s seventh busiest and Florida’s most heavily trafficked airport, said it would stop operations Wednesday morning.

It has been two decades since so many storms crisscrossed Florida in such a short period of time. In 2004, an unprecedented five storms struck Florida within six weeks, including three hurricanes that pummeled central Florida.

Other parts of Florida’s Gulf Coast are still recovering from storms from the past two years. The Fort Myers area in southwest Florida is still rebuilding from Hurricane Ian, which caused $112 billion in damage in 2022. Three hurricanes have thrashed Florida’s Big Bend region in just 13 months, including Helene.

If you are in Florida right now, you need to get out. There's a lot of really warm ocean between Yucutan and Florida, and Milton is already CAT 5. Lots of opportunity for further development. This could be one for the record books.

Hurricane Milton made landfall on Florida's Gulf Coast near Siesta Key in Sarasota County just after 8:30 p.m. on Wednesday, becoming the second major hurricane to strike the region in less than two weeks.

Before landfall, tornadoes on Wednesday afternoon damaged "dozens" of homes in Indian River Estates and Lakewood Park, prompting evacuation efforts ahead of Milton's tropical force winds.

Law enforcement officials reported an unconfirmed number of fatalities related to the storm in Lakewood Park. St. Lucie County Sheriff Keith Pearson informed WPBF-TV that there were deaths in Spanish Lakes Country Club Village, though the exact number was not yet known. "We are going through the rubble," Pearson told the station. "It's devastating. There are no words to describe it."

According to CBS12.com, Pearson said six to 12 tornadoes hit area in a 20-minute span.

Milton struck Siesta Key, a barrier island off Sarasota known for its white-sand beaches and home to about 5,500 residents, according to the National Hurricane Center (NHC). The community is about 70 miles south of Tampa.

While Tampa did not take a direct hit, Milton continued to produce life-threatening storm surge, extreme winds, and flash flooding in the area.

The Tampa Bay area remains under a Flash Flood Emergency, with St. Petersburg's Albert Whitted Airport reporting 16.61 inches of rain so far. Residents in low-lying areas are urged to evacuate as conditions continue to worsen.

Heavy rains were also likely to cause flooding inland along rivers and lakes as Milton traverses the Florida Peninsula as a hurricane, eventually to emerge in the Atlantic Ocean on Thursday.

As of 11:00 p.m. Wednesday, Hurricane Milton was located about 75 miles southwest of Orlando, Florida, and 100 miles west-southwest of Cape Canaveral, moving east-northeast at 16 mph, according to the latest National Hurricane Center (NHC) update.

Maximum sustained winds have decreased slightly to 105 mph as the hurricane moves further inland, but it continues to bring devastating rains and damaging winds across central Florida. Heavy rainfall remains a major concern, with totals of 8 to 14 inches expected, and localized amounts reaching up to 18 inches. This has led to life-threatening flash and urban flooding across the region.

The storm has produced dangerous winds across a wide area, adding to the challenges for emergency response teams. A sustained wind of 92 mph, with a gust of 107 mph, was recently reported at a station in Venice, while Tampa International Airport recorded a sustained wind of 58 mph with a gust of 82 mph.

In Bartow, a gust reached 94 mph, highlighting the intense conditions as Milton continues its track across the Florida peninsula. While the storm surge warning has been lifted north of Anclote River, significant surge dangers remain for other parts of the west coast, including Tampa Bay, which is still under a Flash Flood Emergency.

A Hurricane Milton tornado tore through a Florida retirement community Wednesday, killing multiple residents and leaving a level of destruction not seen locally for decades, officials said.

Five people died in St. Lucie County, on Florida’s east coast, and more than one of those fatalities came at the Spanish Lakes Country Club Village, a neighborhood designed for residents 55 and older, county spokesman Erick Gill said.

“I can’t confirm that all of them were from the Spanish Lakes neighborhood that was hardest hit,” Gill told NBC News. “I don’t know if it was all, but I know there was more than one

A Hurricane Milton tornado tore through a Florida retirement community Wednesday, killing multiple residents and leaving a level of destruction not seen locally for decades, officials said.

Five people died in St. Lucie County, on Florida’s east coast, and more than one of those fatalities came at the Spanish Lakes Country Club Village, a neighborhood designed for residents 55 and older, county spokesman Erick Gill said.

“I can’t confirm that all of them were from the Spanish Lakes neighborhood that was hardest hit,” Gill told NBC News. “I don’t know if it was all, but I know there was more than one

One of the challenges with tornadoes is you don’t really get warnings,” he added. “I’ve worked for St. Lucie County for 21 years. I was here when we had Frances and Jeanne 20 years ago and I have not seen this level of destruction since then.”

Search-and-rescue teams are still combing through tornado-ravaged neighborhoods on Thursday, looking for anyone who might still be trapped under rubble.

Baseless conspiracy theories about weather modification and false claims about disaster relief efforts have continued to spread on X in recent days, with misinformation about Hurricane Milton adding to a mountain of false rumors about Hurricane Helene and its aftermath.

The spread has sparked a push from local and federal officials, along with some politicians, who have decried the spread of misinformation and outlandish claims about the origins of the storms.

But that has done little to quell some of the loudest voices. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., who claimed on X last week that “they can control the weather,” has continued to imply that the hurricanes were part of a political plot. In another X post Greene made on Wednesday, she said that “everyone keeps asking, ‘who is they?’” and added that “some of them are listed on NOAA,” referring to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

President Joe Biden criticized Greene’s claims in a briefing Wednesday, calling them “beyond ridiculous,” and saying, “It’s got to stop.” Several Republican lawmakers have also criticized Greene’s claims.

Greene and conspiracy theorists have cited NOAA webpages about weather modification projects. But the idea that any previous attempts to intervene with weather patterns have involved the creation or worsening of hurricanes is unsubstantiated and false.

Hugh Willoughby, a Florida International University professor who worked in NOAA’s Hurricane Research Division for over 20 years, said that government-funded attempts to modify weather in the past, like Project STORMFURY, attempted to weaken hurricanes. The project lasted for over 10 years but was dropped in 1983.

“We’re all trying to prevent human suffering,” Willoughby said. “And if somebody were deliberately doing the sort of things they imagine, we’d blow the whistle on it.”

In response to the challenges to Greene’s false claims, her deputy chief of staff, Nick Dyer, defended them, saying that she was actually the victim of conspiracy theories.

The explosion of misinformation comes just over three weeks before Election Day, with the storms causing some concern over whether people in hard-hit areas will be able to vote. The University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public said in a rapid research report published Wednesday that Milton is set to exacerbate an already muddled situation.

At the moment, as state and local election boards work quickly to communicate their plans, there is lingering uncertainty around the extent of the storm’s impacts on election processes and how they might be addressed,” the center said in its report. “It is therefore not surprising to see rumors emerging from within communities grappling with the anxiety and uncertainty of the event — or to see bad actors attempting to exploit these conditions to push strategic narratives and unfounded conspiracy theories for political gain. With Hurricane Milton expected to make landfall this week in Florida, we anticipate rumoring to continue.”

Since Hurricane Helene hit on Sept. 26, a slew of misinformation has been circulating regarding FEMA. In an Oct. 3 rally in Saginaw, Michigan, former President Donald Trump falsely claimed that federal emergency disaster money was given illegally to migrants in the U.S. Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, similarly falsely claimed on X that FEMA had used disaster funds to house migrants, a post that Elon Musk reposted among others regarding FEMA.

In 2023, the Federal Emergency Management Agency administered $364 million to cities and counties that serve migrants under its Shelter and Services Program, and $640 million in grants from Customs and Border Protection. However, its Shelter and Services Program is separate from its disaster relief fund, which is over $20 billion.

In a post responding to the claims, White House spokesperson Angelo Fernández Hernández wrote, “The Disaster Relief Fund is specifically appropriated by Congress to prepare for, respond to, recover from, and mitigate impacts of natural disasters. It is completely separate from other grant programs administered by FEMA for DHS.”

While some false claims have been circulating on other platforms, X appears to be the platform with the largest user base on which conspiracy theories are gaining the most traction.

The Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a London-based think tank, said in a report on Tuesday that its analysts had found 33 posts on X containing debunked FEMA misinformation that generated more than 160 million views as of Oct. 7. The ISD noted that nearly one-third of the posts it analyzed contained antisemitic hate targeted at Jewish officials such as the mayor of Asheville, North Carolina, FEMA’s director of public affairs and the secretary of Homeland Security. The think tank found that since Oct. 7, the posts containing antisemitism have garnered over 17 million views.

“The situation exemplifies a wider trend: increasingly, a broad collection of conspiracy groups, extremist movements, political and commercial interests, and at times hostile states, coalesce around crises to further their agendas through online falsehoods, division and hate,” the ISD said in its report. “They exploit social media moderation failures, gaming their algorithmic systems, and often produce dangerous real-world effects.”

“Falsehoods around hurricane response have spawned credible threats and incitement to violence directed at the federal government — this includes calls to send militias to face down FEMA for the perceived denial of aid, and that individuals would ‘shoot’ FEMA officials and the agency’s emergency responders,” the report added.

Shauna Bowes, a postdoctoral fellow at Vanderbilt University whose research focuses on misinformation and polarization, said that times of “calamity” are often hotbeds of misinformation. She said that when misinformation comes from those in power, it makes it even more dangerous.

“Political elite messaging can really fuel polarization, really fuel divides and shape policy,” Bowes said. “So when these people are espousing misinformation and conspiracy theories, then it’s like, ‘Oh, OK, well, maybe it’s true. Maybe it is real, because somebody knowledgeable is saying that’s true.’”

Bowes added that in times of disaster, conspiracy theories arise when people begin to “find someone to blame” in order to make sense of what is happening.

FEMA is working to slow the spread of hurricane misinformation online. The government agency created a web page responding to Hurricane Helene rumors. The North Carolina Department of Public Safety has taken a similar approach creating its own page correcting false information.

On Wednesday, FEMA Administrator Deanna Criswell said in a news briefing that the agency is still seeing misinformation being spread but that the volume is starting to decrease.