Hurricane Milton rapidly intensified into a Category 5 storm on Monday and remained on track to slam Florida’s Gulf Coast later in the week.
As recently as Sunday morning, Milton was a tropical storm in the western Gulf of Mexico, but by Monday afternoon it was a powerful hurricane with sustained winds of 160 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center.
Milton was expected to make landfall in the Tampa Bay area sometime Wednesday, though meteorologists cautioned that the forecast could change in coming days.
Though Milton quickly gained Category 5 strength, forecasters projected it would weaken slightly to a Category 4 storm before landfall.
“The system is still likely to be a large and powerful hurricane at landfall in Florida, with life-threatening hazards at the coastline and well inland,” National Hurricane Center experts wrote.
Meteorologists predicted 5-10 inches of rain for most of the state, with pockets expecting up to 15 inches. Additionally, an 8- to 12-foot storm surge was predicted in Tampa Bay.
A large swath of Florida’s gulf coast was under a hurricane watch Monday, from Sewanee (100 miles north of Tampa) to Chokoloskee (across the peninsula from Miami).
Florida officials began warning residents on Sunday that many would be ordered to evacuate.
“I don’t think there’s any scenario where we don’t have major impacts at this point,” Gov. Ron DeSantis said. “If you’re on that west coast of Florida, barrier islands, just assume you’ll be asked to leave.”
On Monday, Milton remained in the southwestern Gulf of Mexico, near the Yucatan Peninsula, and traveled 9 mph eastward across the water, according to the National Hurricane Center.
An American flag flies upside down, the international sign for distress, at a home in Treasure Island, Florida on Monday ahead of Hurricane Milton’s expected landfall in the middle of this week. (Photo by BRYAN R. SMITH/AFP via Getty Images)
Parts of the state were still recovering from Hurricane Helene, which made landfall as a Category 4 storm on Sept. 26 in the Big Bend region, where the peninsula meets the panhandle. At least 20 people in Florida were killed by Helene, some of the more than 230 people who died nationwide in the storm.
Florida’s emergency management leader, Kevin Guthrie, said his department was planning for the largest evacuation since Hurricane Irma in 2017, when 7 million people were told to leave. That storm also made landfall as a Category 4 and killed 92 people in the mainland U.S.
DeSantis declared a state of emergency in 51 of Florida’s 67 counties, including the major population centers of Broward, Duval, Hillsborough, Miami-Dade, Orange, Palm Beach and Pinellas.
“This is not a good track for the state of Florida,” DeSantis said Sunday.
Milton was an unusual storm because it formed in the western Gulf of Mexico and tracked east toward Florida, according to meteorologists. Most storms that hit Florida in October form in the Caribbean Sea.
The storm was predicted to travel straight across Florida and out to sea, leaving other areas impacted by Helene — Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, communities in the Appalachian Mountains — safe to continue digging out from the wreckage.