Milton makes landfall on Florida’s Gulf Coast as a Category 3 storm

Milton makes landfall on Florida’s Gulf Coast as a Category 3 storm

Hurricane Milton made landfall Wednesday along Florida’s Gulf Coast as a Category 3 storm, bringing powerful winds, deadly storm surge and potential flooding to much of the state. Milton drew fuel from exceedingly warm Gulf of Mexico waters, twice reaching Category 5 status.

More than 1.6 million power customers in Florida were left in the dark Wednesday night as Hurricane Milton battered the state with tornadoes, flooding and strong winds.

Counties along the western coast of the peninsula were hardest hit, particularly in the central portion of the state. Nearly all of the roughly 9,600 Peace River Electric Coop customers in Hardee County were without power shortly after 10pm, according to the website PowerOutage.us.

Outage numbers were climbing throughout the evening but still have not yet reached the totals seen when Hurricane Ian hit Florida in 2022. That storm affected more than 4.45 million power customers over several days in four states, according to PowerOutage.us, impacting more than 9.6 million people in all.

About 90 minutes after making landfall Wednesday night, Milton was centred about 20 miles (30 kilometres) northeast of Sarasota, the US National Hurricane Centre reported. It was moving east-northeast at 16 mph (26 kph).

The storm had weakened to a Category 2 hurricane, with maximum sustained winds of 110 mph (175 kph).

The storm was no less dangerous, however; the National Weather Service also issued a rare flash flood emergency statement for the Tampa Bay area, including the cities of St Petersburg and Clearwater.

The emergency announcement means the weather service believes extremely heavy rain is leading to a severe threat to human life and that catastrophic damage from a flash flood is either already happening or will happen soon.

They are typically made when emergency officials report life-threatening water level rises resulting in rescues or evacuations.

 

  • PublishedOctober 10, 2024