Forecasters say Hurricane Milton has the potential to become one of the most destructive hurricanes on record for west-central Florida, which includes the Tampa area, as millions of residents are in the final hours of preparation.
“It’s worth emphasizing that this is a very serious situation,” the National Hurricane Center warned on Tuesday. “Milton has the potential to be one of the most destructive hurricanes on record for west-central Florida.”
On Monday, Hurricane Milton underwent rapid intensification and strengthened from a Category 1 hurricane to a near-record-breaking Category 5 hurricane with winds of 180 mph and a minimum central pressure of 897 millibars.
Milton has since weakened to a Category 4 hurricane as the storm skirts the coast of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula and is expected to remain an “extremely dangerous hurricane” through landfall along Florida’s west coast.
The NHC said the central pressure within Hurricane Milton fell to the second-lowest pressure on record in the Gulf of Mexico and the lowest pressure in the Atlantic Basin since 2005.
In terms of maximum sustained winds, Milton has also become the strongest hurricane in the Atlantic Basin since Hurricane Dorian in 2019 and tied for the fourth-strongest storm since recordkeeping began. Hurricane Allen holds the top spot with maximum sustained winds that reached 190 mph in 1980.
Hurricane Milton is likely to bring life-threatening impacts to Florida, including a deadly storm surge, destructive hurricane-force winds, and flooding rain that has millions of residents finalizing their emergency plans, while countless others are packing up and fleeing the coast and other low-lying areas as state and local officials plead with people to listen to officials and leave if evacuations are ordered.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis declared a State of Emergency over the weekend for 51 of the state’s 67 counties, and on Monday, President Joe Biden approved the state’s pre-landfall emergency declaration request, which now authorizes the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to coordinate all disaster relief efforts and to provide appropriate assistance for required emergency measures.
