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Hurricane Milton smashed into Florida ’s west coast on Wednesday night ( Oct. 9 ) , spawning multiple twister and28 - foot - high(8.5 meters ) waves as it address a deadly path across the commonwealth .
street plough into river as the hurricane made landfall near Siesta Key in Sarasota County , according to theNational Hurricane Center(NHC ) . It arrived as a Category 3 violent storm , bringing 120 miles per hour ( 190 klick / h ) winds and violent storm surges of up to 13 feet ( 4 m ) , before weakening to a family 1 as it bilk central Florida .
Hurricane Milton captured by NASA’s GOES-East satellite as it made landfall on Florida’s west coast.
Milton , which battered Florida just a few weeks afterHurricane Helene , seemed to come out of nowhere , intensifying rapidly from a tropical depression to a class 5 over the infinite of 2 days .
" Major tempest spring up consecutive is n’t all that unusual . What is almost unprecedented is two major hurricane point the same state within two weeks,“Ryan Truchelut , chief meteorologist and co - founding father of the weather - trailing website WeatherTiger , told Live Science . " This is the fastest turnaround time for two major hurricane landfall in Florida account . "
In late decades , heighten orbiter imagery and more detailed models havevastly improvedhow far out meteorologists can forecast devastating storms — buying cherished time for evacuations . But climate change could make former word of advice tougher as back - to - back , rapidly intensifying , storms become more plebeian .
Resident David Hester surveys the damage to his house on Sept. 28, the day after Hurricane Helene made landfall in Florida.
relate : How strong can hurricane get ?
Hurricanesare fueled by a tenuous stratum of evaporating warm sea water that rise to form storm cloud . The lovesome the ocean is , the more energy the organization get , accelerating the formation process so that violent storms can quickly take shape . This is whyhurricane seasonoccurs from June to November and why the most powerful storms in the Atlantic usually occur between August and September , when sea temperatures peak .
Climate alteration has do ocean temperatures to soar . Since March 2023 , average ocean surface temperature around the world have hitrecord - shattering heights . This has made exceedingly combat-ready Atlantichurricane season much more likelythan they were in the 1980s .
These thawing waters have also made rapidly intensifying storm like Milton more than twice as likely , according to a2023 study .
Rapid intensification is when a storm ’s free burning wind f number increase by at least 35 mph ( 56 klick / h ) in a 24 - hour catamenia , agree to the NHC .
" Hurricane Milton has obliterated that lower limit , undergo utmost , rapid intensification,“Brian Buma , a senior climate scientist at the non-profit-making Environmental Defense Fund , narrate Live Science . " Its maximum sustained wind speed increased by 90 mph [ 145 km / h ] in some 25 hours . speedy intensificationappears to [ be]becoming more commonacross lavatory . "
The speed of Milton ’s intensification mean it is tied with hurricanes Wilma , in 2005 , and Felix , in 2007 , for the quick prison term on record book for an Atlantic tempest progress to Category 5 intensity , saidPhilip Klotzbach , a enquiry scientist in the department of atmospheric science at Colorado State University .
" Milton also intensify by 80 kt [ 90 miles per hour ] in 24 hours , " Klotzbach told Live Science . " That ’s the most intensification for a Gulf of Mexico storm in a 24 - hour period on record . "
The record - breaking pace of strenghtening think of meteorologists and emergency planner have a smaller windowpane to predict life - jeopardize storms and warn residents to evacuate .
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The increase threat has direct some scientists to hint change the Saffir - Simpson graduated table , which categorize storm from one to five based upon their jazz speed , to include even morepowerful Category 6 storms .
" Milton is the tempest that we were envisioning in our paper,“Michael Wehner , a climate scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory , told Live Science . " The most vivid hurricane are more intense in the past decade or so than in the rest of the historic record because of climate modification . Changing the scale would kick upstairs awareness of that unfortunate reality . "
Wehner argue that the current scale " is inadequate to convey all of the peril of an impending storm . " Most of the threat from hurricanes does not come from wind , he said , but from water amount from storm surge and rain .
" The human tragedies of Helene and Milton are Brobdingnagian , " Wehner added . " Both of these storms would have been turgid and annihilating without climate change . However , climate alteration has worsen this agony . "
