Hurricane Milton rebounded to Category 5 status on Tuesday afternoon as the powerful storm moved over the Gulf of Mexico toward Florida.
The National Hurricane Center (NHC) attributed the upgrade to maximum sustained winds rising up to 165 miles per hour.
4pm CDT Oct 8th Key Messages for #Hurricane #Milton which has become a Category 5 hurricane again:
Large area of destructive storm surge expected along portion of west-central coast of #Florida Peninsula. If you are in a Storm Surge Warning area, please evacuate if told by local… pic.twitter.com/JRNnFfKLu5
— National Hurricane Center (@NHC_Atlantic) October 8, 2024
Milton, which has oscillated between Category 4 and 5 over the past 24 hours, is still expected to make landfall along the west-central coast of Florida on Wednesday night.
However, the NHC signaled a degree of caution in its Tuesday afternoon forecast.
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430pm CDT Oct 8th — Observations from the Air Force Reserve Hurricane Hunters (@53rdWRS) confirm that #Hurricane #Milton is a Category 5 hurricane with max sustained winds of 165 mph. The minimum central pressure was down to 905 mb (26.72 inches).
TCU: https://t.co/QFMVE0t85y pic.twitter.com/fYUsyunaGa
— National Hurricane Center (@NHC_Atlantic) October 8, 2024
Milton “wobbled a bit” on Tuesday, which pushed the track guidance “a bit” to the south, the agency said in a discussion post.
NHC emphasized that it is “critical to remember” that forecasts from the agency can be “off” by an average of 60 nautical miles even at 36 hours out.
This “means we still can’t pinpoint an exact landfall location, especially if additional wobbles occur in the short term,” the agency said.
#Milton is the fastest Atlantic hurricane to intensify from a Tropical Depression to a Category 5 Hurricane, taking just over 48 hours. This animation shows Milton as it intensified, with the heaviest rains (red) concentrated near the center. https://t.co/uXpdGH1yEd pic.twitter.com/YWwrpgQcTe
— NASA Earth (@NASAEarth) October 8, 2024
Evacuation orders have been issued in counties across the Gulf Coast, and shelters have been opened for those seeking refuge.
Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis declared a state of emergency, suspended tolls, and is making other preparations for the storm.
“Now is the time to execute your plan and follow any evacuation orders from your local officials,” DeSantis said in a post to X late Tuesday afternoon.
“Your home can be rebuilt, your possessions can be replaced, but we cannot replace a life lost to the storm,” he added.
Today, I visited a logistics staging area at the Florida Horse Park in Ocala, one of our many staging sites just outside Hurricane Milton’s projected path. Florida and our partners have spent the past few days deploying personnel and equipment to strategically located sites like… pic.twitter.com/ND8Kumd6kA
— Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) October 8, 2024
The Tampa Bay area, which got submerged by Hurricane Helene less than two weeks ago, could get up to 15 feet of storm surge with Milton.
During a Monday evening interview on CNN, Tampa Mayor Jane Castor, a Democrat, issued a dire warning to residents who refuse to leave.
“I can say this without any dramatization whatsoever: If you choose to stay in one of those evacuation areas, you are going to die,” she declared.
As the NHC stated earlier on Tuesday, Milton’s wind field is poised to double in size and the hurricane may weaken before landfall.
Still, conditions that sap the storm “will likely not be enough to keep Milton from being an extremely dangerous hurricane when it reaches shore,” NHC said.
“Damaging winds, life-threatening storm surge, and heavy rainfall will extend well outside the forecast cone,” the agency stressed.
That means places across Florida and beyond may feel the impacts of the storm, even if they are far away from where its core makes landfall.
“After landfall, Milton is forecast to cross Florida and emerge over the Atlantic waters on Thursday,” NHC also said.
NASA astronaut Matthew Dominick shared images of Milton from the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule Endeavor docked to the International Space Station.
Timelapse flying by Hurricane Milton about 2 hours ago.
1/6400 sec exposure, 14mm, ISO 500, 0.5 sec interval, 30fps pic.twitter.com/p5wBlC95mx
— Matthew Dominick (@dominickmatthew) October 8, 2024
