Hurricane Milton made landfall on Wednesday night as a dangerous Category 3 storm near Siesta Key, a barrier island located just south of Sarasota, Florida. With sustained winds of 120 mph at landfall, Milton’s strength decreased to Category 1 as it moved inland across the state.
As of early Thursday, more than 3.2 million people in Florida were without power, according to PowerOutage.us.
The National Hurricane Center had warned residents in the Tampa and St. Petersburg areas to stay indoors due to the extremely strong hurricane-force winds spreading through the region. Earlier that day, the National Weather Service in Miami reported at least four tornadoes, including a powerful “multi-vortex tornado,” and warned that a storm surge was hitting the southwestern coast of Florida. Multiple tornado warnings were issued alongside hurricane and storm surge alerts for many of the same areas.
After initially intensifying into a powerful Category 5 storm with winds exceeding 180 mph on Monday, Milton began to weaken as it approached landfall. Although it was downgraded, serious damage and flooding were still anticipated.
Jeff Masters, a scientist who previously worked with NOAA’s hurricane hunters, noted that some of the worst disasters in hurricane history have occurred from storms that weakened before making landfall. For example, Hurricane Katrina was a Category 3 storm when it hit land but had been a Category 5 earlier, resulting in catastrophic damage.
Milton continued to weaken after landfall as it moved away from the warm Gulf waters, eventually transitioning into a tropical storm after entering the Atlantic Ocean. However, it is important to recognize that even as a weakened storm, Milton was still capable of causing significant destruction across Florida.
