Hurricane Milton landfall overnight; summery Thursday ahead
Milton will cause widespread wind and storm surge damage
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It’s happening.
Hurricane Milton is already pounding Florida’s Gulf Coast with landfall during the overnight hours.
Milton took a bit of a jog north of the official track forecast Wednesday. That will likely put landfall a bit closer to the Tampa area.
The big picture is, that Milton is big and powerful enough to cause significant wind and storm surge damage from Tampa all the way to Fort Myers.
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Here’s the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's latest forecast discussion:
Milton's recent motion has been northeastward (035 degrees) at about 15 kt. Track model guidance continues to insist that the hurricane will slow down a bit and turn more to the right very soon, taking the center near or just south of Tampa Bay later this evening. Milton's center is then expected to cross central Florida and turn east-northeastward as it emerges over the western Atlantic. Milton is likely to be right near the threshold of a major hurricane when it reaches the west-central coast of Florida this evening. Milton has grown in size today, particularly in the extent of 34- and 50-kt winds to the northwest of the center, and the northern eyewall appears most severe at the moment due to southwesterly shear. As a result, significant wind impacts are likely to occur north of the center, as well as to the south, regardless of the exact intensity at landfall. There will likely be a noticeable gradient of surge heights to the north of the landfall location, however, the risk of devastating storm surge still exists across much of the west-central and southwest coast of Florida given the size of the storm.
Summer again Thursday
Thursday brings one more day of summerlike weather. Highs will run into the 80s once again across much of Minnesota.
Cooler temperatures follow a couple of cold fronts as we move into the upcoming weekend.
Widespread frost and freezing temperatures are likely by next Tuesday morning.
It looks like we may warm up again into the 70s again later next week.