Hurricane Milton is a strong category-five storm. It is moving towards Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula and Florida, which is making a lot of people leave their homes.
Hurricane Milton is getting bigger and stronger. This category-five hurricane is heading toward Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula and then towards Florida. Over one million people in Florida have been told to evacuate their homes.
Florida’s west coast is preparing for the storm. This area is still recovering from Hurricane Helene, which caused a lot of damage less than two weeks ago.
Milton is expected to reach the Tampa Bay area, where more than three million people live. Some people are trying to clean up the mess left by Helene as they leave their homes.
Hurricane Milton has winds reaching 270 km/h, making it one of the strongest storms on the Saffir-Simpson scale. The hurricane center says that wind speeds might drop to 233 km/h as Milton gets closer to Florida. Even at this speed, it would still be a category-four hurricane. This means there could be major damage and power outages for days.
Milton is powered by the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico. It has quickly gotten stronger, becoming the third-fastest storm to grow in strength in the Atlantic. It went from a tropical storm to a category-five hurricane in less than 24 hours.
The path of the hurricane is unusual. Normally, hurricanes form in the Caribbean Sea and move west before turning north. Jonathan Lin, a scientist at Cornell University, said it is rare for a hurricane to form in the western Gulf and move east. This unusual path affects where the storm surge will be the biggest.
The hurricane center predicts that storm surges could reach up to 4.5 meters along the coast north and south of Tampa Bay.
Jamie Rhome, deputy director of the National Hurricane Center, says Milton is expected to get even larger before it hits land on Wednesday. This means that hundreds of kilometers of Florida’s coastline are at risk for dangerous storm surges. Rhome mentioned that Milton will likely stay a hurricane for the entire time it travels across Florida.
As of late Monday, the eye of Hurricane Milton was 60 km north-northwest of Progreso, a Mexican port city. It was also 1,015 km southwest of Tampa and moving east at 15 km/h. Milton is expected to hit the northern part of the Yucatan Peninsula early Tuesday morning.
This area includes the beautiful city of Merida, which has a population of 1.2 million people, famous Maya ruins, and the port of Progreso. In Florida, counties along the western coast have told people living in low-lying areas to move to higher ground.
Pinellas County, which includes St. Petersburg, ordered the evacuation of over 500,000 people. Lee County, another affected area, has 416,000 people living in zones where evacuation is mandatory. Six other coastal counties have also ordered evacuations, including Hillsborough County, which has the city of Tampa.
As people have one last day to leave on Tuesday, local officials worry about heavy traffic and long lines at gas stations. They urge everyone to leave early and safely.
At the same time, relief efforts continue across much of the southeastern United States after Hurricane Helene, a category-four storm.
Helene made landfall in Florida on September 26 and caused the deaths of over 200 people. It also caused billions of dollars in damage across six states.
The situation remains serious as Hurricane Milton approaches. Residents in Mexico and Florida are preparing for the storm and doing their best to stay safe. Everyone is advised to pay attention to updates and follow instructions from local officials. The safety of everyone is the top priority as these powerful storms move across the region.