Just days after explosively strengthening to become the most intense Gulf hurricane in nearly two decades, the eye of Hurricane Milton crossed the west-central Florida coast at Siesta Key, near Sarasota – just 20 miles south of Tampa Bay – as a Category 3 hurricane with winds of 120 mph. around 8:30 p.m. local time Wednesday evening.

During the day Wednesday, dozens of warnings were issued for violent Midwest supercell tornadoes that tracked across Florida’s east coast as Milton’s outer bands signaled its imminent landfall.

In total, the National Weather Service issued 126 tornado warnings across the state on Wednesday, the most ever issued in a 24-hour period for the state in records dating back to 1986.

It nearly doubled the number of tornado warnings issued on a previous calendar day for Florida – 69 tornado warnings issued during Hurricane Irma in 2017 – and is the largest number of tornado warnings issued for a state in a single calendar day since 134 tornado warnings were issued. in Alabama during the historic April 2011 super outbreak.

So far, nearly 40 tornadoes have been reported following yesterday’s deadly outbreak, but those numbers will be revised in the coming days as NWS damage assessment teams verify strength and path yesterday’s tornadoes.

Milton’s stinging back

The Milton track, just south of Tampa Bay, spared the populated Tampa/St. Catastrophic storm surge on the Pete Coast – with strong onshore winds north of center pushing water out of Tampa Bay up to 5 feet – but the southward track put the Tampa Bay area on the north side windy and rainy from the hurricane, a scenario we detailed in yesterday’s bulletin.

Milton’s stinging tail caused wind gusts in excess of 100 mph from Tampa Bay south to Sarasota and Venice, including wind gusts of up to 105 mph on the Egmont Canal west of Tampa Bay and 102 mph at Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport about an hour past downtown Milton. landing.

Winds ravaged downtown Tampa, bringing down construction cranes and destroying the roof of Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, a site transformed into a 10,000-person base camp for responders after the landing.

As the waters flowed out of Tampa Bay, precipitation poured in from above. Downtown Tampa’s Bayshore Boulevard — a frequent victim of coastal flooding from storm surges raising waters in Tampa Bay — was inundated with rainwater as Tampa officially recorded more precipitation in 24 hours than ‘during any preceding October calendar month since 1890.

As of midnight, St. Petersburg topped 18.43 inches of rain – with an incredible 5 inches falling in the span of an hour – the type of rain St. Petersburg might expect once every 500 years on average, according to NOAA.

Rainfall totals of more than a foot fell on the busy I-4 corridor through early Thursday, from Tampa/St. Pete in Lakeland in the west to Clermont, Apopka and New Smyrna Beach in the east.

During the midnight hours, winds reached 74 mph at Orlando International Airport — similar to wind gusts measured there during Hurricanes Irma and Ian in 2017 and 2022, respectively — and winds exceeded 87 mph before dawn Thursday in Daytona Beach. Florida’s east coast as the windy north side of Milton slides over east-central Florida.

As of dawn Thursday, more than 3 million customers across the Florida peninsula were without power.

Waiting for reports from the hardest hit coastal area

The worst of Milton’s devastating storm surges landed along barrier islands stretching from Longboat Key and Siesta Key west of Sarasota-Bradenton south to Manasota Key and Boca Grande south of Venice.

These areas were largely emptied through evacuation orders prior to Milton, and with little access and communications established, we do not yet know the full extent of Milton’s worst storm surge.

Based on the hurricane’s track, it is likely that storm surge flooding exceeded 10 feet in these hardest-hit areas.

Destructive storm surge flooding also engulfed Charlotte Harbor and up the Peace River, causing significant flooding in parts of Punta Gorda Wednesday evening.

More than 5 feet of storm surge flooding was reported at NOAA tide gauges as far away as Naples and Fort Myers, causing another round of major, widespread flooding just two weeks after Helene caused significant flooding levels in these same areas.

According to NOAA, the magnitude of coastal flooding in Fort Myers and Naples is expected to occur on average about once every 30 to 60 years, but it has now happened three times in two years (Ian in 2022 and Helene and Milton this season) for these coastal areas, the brutal result of rising seas and a series of violent hurricanes targeting the west coast of Florida.

Milton walks away while the Atlantic breathes

Milton will continue to accelerate away from Florida today, although moderate to major wind gusts and coastal flooding will persist through the morning due to strong outflow winds in parts of the Northeast of Florida and southeast Georgia, including along the St. Johns River near Jacksonville.

Conditions are expected to improve significantly across the Sunshine State by Friday and into the weekend, with Milton ushering in the first cold front of the fall and a surge of dry air in South Florida, a scenario which we discussed in detail in this newsletter 8 days ago.

After unprecedented activity during the first 10 days of October, the Atlantic is looking to catch its breath.

Like most storms during this intense period, Leslie in the greater Atlantic continued to exceed forecasts yesterday, strengthening into a Category 2 hurricane. It looks like it has finally reached its peak and will remain at wide.

Otherwise, we don’t see any nearby tropical mischief on the horizon.

Models once again suggest an increase in storms in the western Caribbean by the end of next week, but the signal of organized development in the models remains weak for now.

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