Hurricane Milton set to be historically deadly storm

AccuWeather

AccuWeather's Jon Porter tracks Hurricane Milton's movement as the storm is expected to be historic and life-threatening when it makes landfall in Florida in the late night of Oct. 9.

Transcript

00:00with the latest on this as you've been following it. You've been talking about

00:03with the forecasters there. What more are you learning now, john? Yeah. Good

00:07afternoon, Melissa. We've been watching every wobble in the storms track here

00:11minute by minute and a couple of things to note here. First of all, maximum

00:15sustained winds of 145 MPH. So this is a intense category four hurricane on

00:21the south for Simpson Wind scale with a pressure of 9 35 millibars. But look at

00:25the movement. It's northeast at 17 MPH. And we've been watching for any signs

00:31of that movement to slow down because oftentimes if the movement slows down,

00:36that can be a sign that it might be trying to take a turn more to the east.

00:40But so far the motion, we've not seen that. And if anything, the store, the

00:44forward motion of the storm has continued to increase and the direction

00:48of the storm is still moving north. It's actually moving north of east and that

00:54has been also a concern because it continues to gain latitude. And the

00:57more it's able to do that, the more risks there will be for significant

01:02impacts in the Tampa Bay area. So that's something that we're continuing to

01:05monitor. Either way, the water levels are starting to increase and we're

01:08going to be dealing with a major problem here with this land falling

01:12hurricane. This storm is going to rewrite the coastline in some areas in

01:17terms of just how significant this storm surge is going to be. And john,

01:21you've been talking about following that storm and where it's going to be.

01:24Has I will replacement cycles had any issues and challenges here of finding

01:29out exactly how far north or east that turn has been? Well, those store these

01:34types of storms well established storms do go through those I will replacement

01:38cycles. Melissa, as you mentioned, where they sort of re re establish a

01:43different internal configuration and that sometimes can can be a factor when

01:48we're looking at those little wobbles from time to time. So the question is

01:51always is it just a temporary wobble because hurricanes always have those as

01:56long as they're moving along or is it a more defined shift to the east? And we

02:00just have not seen that yet. And that's why our concern is growing about those

02:04great impacts that we've been talking about in the Tampa Bay area. Great

02:08impacts in terms of high impacts from storm surge. And that's a very serious

02:12concern. And the storm surge map is behind you now again. We do have areas

02:17that are 15 plus feet of storm surge. That's right. We are very rarely put

02:23that on the map. Look at that 15 to 20 ft of storm surge from parts of Tampa

02:26Bay down to Sarasota and Venice and also a significant surge of 10 to 15

02:31ft all the way down to Fort Myers. And remember, the west coast of Florida has

02:36all these bays and inlets and tidal rivers and that Gulf of Mexico water.

02:40It's almost like a tsunami that's going to arrive here and start inundating the

02:45coastal immediate coastline and right into those tidal rivers and bays. And

02:49that's why it's so dangerous. And people need to be out of those areas where

02:53there's a mandatory evacuation in place. And we talk about water coming down

02:58from the storm, so it's not just pushing in from the gulf. It's also falling

03:02from the sky and big amounts of rainfall. Don't let your guard down on

03:06this, especially along into the north of the track of the storm from Tampa to

03:10north to Daytona Beach to near Jacksonville, 12 to 18 inches of rain

03:14with an Accuweather local storm max of 30. Some of this rain, Melissa, is

03:18going to be coming down to the rate of 3 to 4 inches per hour. That's too

03:21fast, too furious. That's why we're talking about major life threatening

03:25flash flooding from this rain along and north, especially of Interstate four.

03:31And we'll hit on one more thing, john, because we've talked about this is a

03:34major hurricane on the Saffir Simpsons scale, which solely goes by winds. What

03:39do these winds when you see a map like this? What does that mean to you? Well,

03:42the first thing that strikes me is just how much of the florida peninsula is

03:45going to be dealing with damaging winds and look at the core of the wind of

03:50wind gusts of 100 to 120 MPH near Tampa, down toward Bradenton and even

03:55toward Port Charlotte. But it goes east toward Orlando. There could be wind

03:59gusts to near 100 MPH in Orlando. This destructive wind will be coming right

04:04inland along the I four corridor. Look for numerous and long lasting power

04:09to Orlando and even over to Daytona Beach as well as considerable damage

04:14from these destructive winds.

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