Why the “unusual” path of Hurricane Milton could cause disaster in Florida

Florida is bracing for another major hurricane to strike this week, less than two weeks after Hurricane Helene made landfall in the Sunshine State, causing massive devastation that authorities are still trying to clean up.

Tropical Storm Milton was upgraded to a Category 1 hurricane on Sunday, but forecasters warn it could become even stronger before reaching Florida’s west coast on Wednesday.

Milton is directly targeting the Tampa Bay region – one of the state’s largest metropolitan areas and home to more than 3 million people.

The Tampa Bay area has seen a number of hurricanes, but the storms typically do not hit the region directly from the west in the Gulf of Mexico, but instead move north along the coast, as shown by the tracks of Hurricane Ian in 2022 .

Jonathan Porter, AccuWeather’s chief meteorologist, called Milton’s trajectory “unusual and extremely concerning.”

Local station WKBN identified four recorded storms blowing in that direction – three of which hit Tampa Bay in the 19th century.

The National Hurricane Center looked at the storm on Sunday and wrote that there was an “increasing risk of life-threatening storm surge and damaging winds” along Florida’s west coast starting late Tuesday or early Wednesday morning. Forecasters have not yet determined exactly how strong Milton will be when it reaches Florida, but are warning residents to expect it to develop into a “major hurricane.”

Authorities in Florida are now preparing for the worst after being hit by Hurricane Helene, a Category 4 storm, on September 26th.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis expanded the emergency declaration on Sunday, declaring a state of emergency for 51 of Florida’s 67 counties – including the cities of Tampa, Miami and Orlando. In an address to Floridians on Sunday, DeSantis said more than 800 National Guard troops are already deployed and another 4,000 will be deployed in the next few days. He added that there would be a 24-hour operation in the area to remove debris left over from Helene and prepare for Milton’s arrival.

“You have a storm and then less than two weeks later you have one — two majors in a row — it’s not easy,” DeSantis said. “We have to do it 24/7 until it’s no longer safe.”

Currently, forecasters say Milton will likely avoid some of the states hardest hit by Helene’s flooding and destruction – including most of Georgia, North Carolina and Tennessee.

Helene made landfall as a Category 4 storm in Florida’s Big Bend region, a more rural part of the Panhandle just south of the state capital, Tallahassee.

The last time a major storm approached Tampa from the Gulf of Mexico was Tropical Storm Henri in 2003 (a storm unrelated to Hurricane Henri in 2021, which struck Bermuda and the Northeast). According to NOAA, this storm weakened into a tropical depression before making landfall.

School cancellations and evacuations have already begun in some parts of the region. Pasco County, just north of Tampa, began ordering mandatory evacuation as early as Sunday evening, the Tampa Bay Times reported.