Major Hurricane Milton

[nj08822]

My family has a house in the Punta Gorda area, and it appears the storm surge was only 1+ foot higher than that experienced in Helene less than 2 weeks ago.  If that's true (and with thousands still likely flooded in Charlotte County), many people dodged a bullet.

 

[40/70 Benchmark]

Here is my reflection on a forecast gone a bit awry.....I feel my degree of error in the forecast was palatable, but I am not happy with how I opted to sensationalize the title...more emphasis should have been placed on the level of uncertainty. 

https://easternmassweather.blogspot.com/2024/10/hurricane-milton-verification-devil-is.html

Grade: C-

 

 

[EWR757]

The NHC as usual did a great job.  

 

How people interpret that information and the histrionics and politics added after the fact, well, we need to work on that a bit.  

[40/70 Benchmark]

1 minute ago, EWR757 said:

The NHC as usual did a great job.  

 

How people interpret that information and the histrionics and politics added after the fact, well, we need to work on that a bit.  

They were pretty bad with Helene...as was all guidnace.

[Floydbuster]

1 hour ago, NorthHillsWx said:

My post got deleted yesterday (not sure why) but I said thank the lord this things core stayed very small while it was at high intensity and when the wind field expanded it did so mostly on the northern side so offshore winds. This greatly mitigated surge potential. The fear was that after the first ERC this would grow significantly and though it grew, it didn’t really grow that much. It went from tiny to small. That being said, I’m sure there were a few 10’ surge readings, Siesta Key would be my likely ground 0. Still haven’t seen anything from there. That is a devastating surge, it just wasn’t over as broad an area as we feared. As for inland winds, honestly the number of 100+ mph gusts is impressive. Certainly an area with plenty of observation locations but getting 80-90 mph gusts on east coast is super impressive and shows how the jet aided this storm even though the tropical core collapsed. Seeing those extremely strong backside winds almost no rain falling is absolutely a sign this was losing it’s tropical characteristics at landfall and drier air and the collapsing core pulled those winds in and kept them going inland. 
 

Overall, what I’ve seen sounds like intensity was accurate. This was likely verified as a low-end 3. Surge was probably a little less than most majors we’ve seen recently simply bc it had a small core especially in the part that created the surge (southern side). Wind damage is extensive and power outages are extreme. The tornado outbreak was one of the most severe in history for a tropical system. Very damaging major hurricane strike and hoping loss of life was kept to a minimum as Florida is excellent at preparing for these things. 

 

Agree on the size. I was thinking (and so was the NHC early on) that Milton would become a much larger hurricane. Eventually, the tropical storm wind expanded out, but the hurricane force winds never really grew more than 30 miles or so from the eye. Helene had the hurricane winds extending 60 miles, and Ian had them extending out 50 miles. 

I also think Ian’s 150 mph winds and Helene’s 140 mph winds are a big difference from Milton’s small weakening 115-120 mph winds.

[RU848789]

Update on the tornado from yesterday in Fort Pierce: it has been confirmed that 4 people died in the Spanish Lakes Country Club Village development in the Lakeland Park area of northern Ft. Pierce (only a mile or so from Vero Beach, so this kind of scared my dad and my brother/SO and my sister/SO, who all live in Vero in separate locations) from that EF3 (estimated) tornado that ripped through the area. Tornadoes are certainly common with hurricanes, but strong tornadoes are pretty unusual and the number of tornadoes was also unusual, with 125 tornado warnings issued and 38 actual tornadoes touching down (based on observations, not 100% confirmed yet).  The video of the damage on TWC is heartbreaking with houses literally like they exploded.  

https://www.wpbf.com/.../officials-multiple.../62561027

 

[GaWx]

28 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

They were pretty bad with Helene...as was all guidnace.

 I agree that NHC did a pretty bad job with the projected track of Helene through GA (disappointing because they usually do much better) but I’m saying that because the global model guidance was overall actually not bad. In contrast several globals did a great job in consistently calling for the center to track well E of the NHC’s W GA track in going NNE into NE GA, which is what actually occurred.

 In contrast I thought the NHC was excellent with Milton, which is typically how they do.

[Normandy]

Meteorologically speaking, the most interesting thing easily is the historic and unprecedented tornado outbreak this system produced.  Nobody will ever say this out loud and it will never be recorded a historical fact, but yesterdays tornado outbreak was potentially one of the biggest numbers wise in US history.  half of the event the tornadic supercells went offshore and thus warnings stopped.  I said this yesterday but if there was more land to the east the number of tornado warnings and confirmed tornadoes would have doubled.  You would have had well over 200 warnings and 30 confirmed.  In FLORIDA.  
 

[GaWx]

14 minutes ago, Normandy said:

Meteorologically speaking, the most interesting thing easily is the historic and unprecedented tornado outbreak this system produced.  Nobody will ever say this out loud and it will never be recorded a historical fact, but yesterdays tornado outbreak was potentially one of the biggest numbers wise in US history.  half of the event the tornadic supercells went offshore and thus warnings stopped.  I said this yesterday but if there was more land to the east the number of tornado warnings and confirmed tornadoes would have doubled.  You would have had well over 200 warnings and 30 confirmed.  In FLORIDA.  
 

This tornado outbreak was noted as having the most warnings for FL of any day in their recorded history. It was also noted as having the 2nd largest number of warnings for any day for any state, second only to AL in the great 2011 outbreak:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Super_Outbreak

[terdferguson]

11 minutes ago, Normandy said:

Meteorologically speaking, the most interesting thing easily is the historic and unprecedented tornado outbreak this system produced.  Nobody will ever say this out loud and it will never be recorded a historical fact, but yesterdays tornado outbreak was potentially one of the biggest numbers wise in US history.  half of the event the tornadic supercells went offshore and thus warnings stopped.  I said this yesterday but if there was more land to the east the number of tornado warnings and confirmed tornadoes would have doubled.  You would have had well over 200 warnings and 30 confirmed.  In FLORIDA.  
 

A great point.  Another way to say it would be in the history of the US there's never been this many tornadoes in this amount of time in this small ofan area. Absolutely can make the argument that this was the number one tornado outbreak of all time.  

Unfortunately I happened to be right in the middle of it yesterday as I evacuated from my home in St Pete and drove my family across to Stuart on the east coast. A three and a half hour drive turned into a 7-hour drive of dodging tornadoes. Our phones were buzzing constantly with tornado warnings, we came upon fresh tornado damage in multiple locations, saw home debris falling from the sky 100 yards from our car, power poles snapped in half laying on the highway, demolished homes, a destroyed gas station, etc. Felt like I was in the movie twister, it was absolutely insane.

[f2tornado]

The shape of the coast immediately south of the landfall point is not as conducive to massive surge like would be possible in Tampa, Charlotte Harbor, or around Cape Coral. That said, I'm sure someone along Mansota got a significant beating regardless. The hype was legit. It just happened the storm took about as good of a track as it could to minimize absolute dollar value loss from storm surge. On the flip side, the track resulted in about a worst case scenario for flash flooding in the Tampa area. A lot of people are going to return home to big messes. 

[DDweatherman]

3 minutes ago, terdferguson said:

A great point.  Another way to say it would be in the history of the US there's never been this many tornadoes in this amount of time in this small ofan area. Absolutely can make the argument that this was the number one tornado outbreak of all time.  

Unfortunately I happened to be right in the middle of it yesterday as I evacuated from my home in St Pete and drove my family across to Stuart on the east coast. A three and a half hour drive turned into a 7-hour drive of dodging tornadoes. Our phones were buzzing constantly with tornado warnings, we came upon fresh tornado damage in multiple locations, saw home debris falling from the sky 100 yards from our car, power poles snapped in half laying on the highway, demolished homes, a destroyed gas station, etc. Felt like I was in the movie twister, it was absolutely insane.

Crazy story. I can't imagine that one. 

This certainly would have been a crazy statistical outbreak if there was more land to cover. I got curious and checked, and sure enough there were a few tornado touchdowns in the Bahamas. Proves that there were tornadoes east and likely dozens of waterspouts out off the coast of FL. 

[MillvilleWx]

59 minutes ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

They were pretty bad with Helene...as was all guidnace.

Track was good until the last day, which unfortunately is the most critical. They made a lot of adjustments till game time, and even then missed the full eastern progression of the cyclone compared to forecast. 
 

Messaging otoh was very good as WPC and NHC really wanted to hammer home the highest impacts being flash flooding and major River flood prospects. I worked the lead chair at WPC that week and those were my first with no trainer. Quite a week, but was a great experience. We had a crescendoing message through the week that culminated in Catastrophic, life-threatening language with 24-36 hrs prior to landfall. Unfortunately, that worked out too well 

[jm1220]

13 minutes ago, f2tornado said:

The shape of the coast immediately south of the landfall point is not as conducive to massive surge like would be possible in Tampa, Charlotte Harbor, or around Cape Coral. That said, I'm sure someone along Mansota got a significant beating regardless. The hype was legit. It just happened the storm took about as good of a track as it could to minimize absolute dollar value loss from storm surge. On the flip side, the track resulted in about a worst case scenario for flash flooding in the Tampa area. A lot of people are going to return home to big messes. 

Manasota Key and Punta Gorda looked pretty messed up from footage I saw so far. Lots of debris and boats tossed around. Doesn’t look catastrophic like after Ian but like what 10-12 feet of surge would probably cause. In Ian wasn’t the max surge 15 feet? 

[GaWx]

 I posted earlier about the record high rainfall at St. Petersburg for any day in history back to 1916. Here’s the official NWS release about the 18.54” which has history slightly further back (to 1914). This is interesting because they noted the previous record from 8/2/1915, 15.45”. That extreme an amount seemed to be very localized based on a much lower amount at Tampa and other cities. It was a result of storm #1 that had a landfall at Titusville with it recurving well E of St. Pete:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1915_Atlantic_hurricane_season#/media/File%3A1915_Atlantic_hurricane_1_track.png

RECORD EVENT REPORT  
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE TAMPA BAY FL  
400 AM EDT THU OCT 10 2024  
   
..WETTEST DAY ON RECORD AT SAINT PETERSBURG  
   
..RECORD DAILY MAXIMUM RAINFALL SET AT SAINT PETERSBURG  
  
A RECORD RAINFALL OF 18.54 INCHES WAS SET AT SAINT PETERSBURG   
YESTERDAY. THIS BROKE THE OLD DAILY RECORD FOR OCTOBER 9TH OF   
1.56 INCHES SET IN 1953.   
  
THIS ALSO SET A NEW DAILY RECORD FOR ANY DAY OF THE YEAR BREAKING   
THE PREVIOUS RECORD OF 15.45 INCHES SET ON AUGUST 2, 1915. RECORDS   
IN SAINT PETERSBURG BEGAN ON AUGUST 1, 1914.

[f2tornado]

8 minutes ago, jm1220 said:

Manasota Key and Punta Gorda looked pretty messed up from footage I saw so far. Lots of debris and boats tossed around. Doesn’t look catastrophic like after Ian but like what 10-12 feet of surge would probably cause. In Ian wasn’t the max surge 15 feet? 

A highly localized area from Ian exceeded 12 feet that and aided by the bite shaped coast that makes a good collector of water. The RFQ of Ian was also more intense than Milton in terms of peak winds. 

[gymengineer]

4 minutes ago, jm1220 said:

Manasota Key and Punta Gorda looked pretty messed up from footage I saw so far. Lots of debris and boats tossed around. Doesn’t look catastrophic like after Ian but like what 10-12 feet of surge would probably cause. In Ian wasn’t the max surge 15 feet? 

As you said, footage from Manasota Key, with collapsed structures: 

 

[bugalou]

42 minutes ago, Normandy said:

Meteorologically speaking, the most interesting thing easily is the historic and unprecedented tornado outbreak this system produced.  Nobody will ever say this out loud and it will never be recorded a historical fact, but yesterdays tornado outbreak was potentially one of the biggest numbers wise in US history.  half of the event the tornadic supercells went offshore and thus warnings stopped.  I said this yesterday but if there was more land to the east the number of tornado warnings and confirmed tornadoes would have doubled.  You would have had well over 200 warnings and 30 confirmed.  In FLORIDA.  

This is my take away. The outbreak was exceedingly unique from a meteorological perspective. Milton's oddball storm track played into this and worked perfectly to both pull in dryer air around the storm to allow surface warming and increased SBCAPEs to pretty wild levels for a tropical system.  Then injecting all that hurricane spin made the helicity high with a virtually unlimited tap of moisture for supercells. I think we will look back on this as another "perfect storm" type event from a tornado production stand point due to the hybrid nature of both a tropical and extra-tropical factors that helped produce all the supercells.

[dan11295]

I am assuming in Manasota Key/Grove City that is actually Milton damage and not mostly previous damage from Helene (I don't know what the area looked like post-Helene and pre-Milton). Could also be a cumulative effect of both storms, since both had generally similar surges (with some variation) within such a short time period along the Ft Myers-Sarasota stretch of coastline.

[gymengineer]

20 minutes ago, f2tornado said:

A highly localized area from Ian exceeded 12 feet that and aided by the bite shaped coast that makes a good collector of water. The RFQ of Ian was also more intense than Milton in terms of peak winds. 

 

This graphic in the Ian TCR is from the NWS surveys and supplements the USGS sourced one you posted.

[RU848789]

41 minutes ago, GaWx said:

 I posted earlier about the record high rainfall at St. Petersburg for any day in history back to 1916. Here’s the official NWS release about the 18.54” which has history slightly further back (to 1914). This is interesting because they noted the previous record from 8/2/1915, 15.45”. That extreme an amount seemed to be very localized based on a much lower amount at Tampa and other cities. It was a result of storm #1 that had a landfall at Titusville with it recurving well E of St. Pete:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1915_Atlantic_hurricane_season#/media/File%3A1915_Atlantic_hurricane_1_track.png

RECORD EVENT REPORT  
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE TAMPA BAY FL  
400 AM EDT THU OCT 10 2024  
   
..WETTEST DAY ON RECORD AT SAINT PETERSBURG  
   
..RECORD DAILY MAXIMUM RAINFALL SET AT SAINT PETERSBURG  
  
A RECORD RAINFALL OF 18.54 INCHES WAS SET AT SAINT PETERSBURG   
YESTERDAY. THIS BROKE THE OLD DAILY RECORD FOR OCTOBER 9TH OF   
1.56 INCHES SET IN 1953.   
  
THIS ALSO SET A NEW DAILY RECORD FOR ANY DAY OF THE YEAR BREAKING   
THE PREVIOUS RECORD OF 15.45 INCHES SET ON AUGUST 2, 1915. RECORDS   
IN SAINT PETERSBURG BEGAN ON AUGUST 1, 1914.

I know you're just sharing info, which is fine, but from my perspective, I find most "daily" records to be much less useful than event records.  For example, having 10" on 2 consecutive days for 20" event total is far more relevant/useful than having 13" all in one day.  IMO.  

[Nibor]

[RedSky]

9 minutes ago, Nibor said:

Check out the miraculous turn east just in time to save Tampa

 

[Normandy]

The tornado outbreak on that radar loop…what a beast of a storm 

[NorthHillsWx]

Someone said it earlier, but my god the tornado outbreak over water east of Florida on that loop. Probably some EF3+ waterspouts 

[Retrobuc]

9 hours ago, the_other_guy said:

Looks like Daytona is taking it on chin this morning. They are used to these (now usual) backside storms and they seem to cause more damage for area than storms that graze them from ocean

Gusting to 59 kts currently

I measured 18.2 inches of rain and a local news outlet posted winds of 86 MPH in Daytona.  It was incredible and an intense 5 hours overnight.

[GaWx]

7 hours ago, RU848789 said:

I know you're just sharing info, which is fine, but from my perspective, I find most "daily" records to be much less useful than event records.  For example, having 10" on 2 consecutive days for 20" event total is far more relevant/useful than having 13" all in one day.  IMO.  

 I follow you as I was thinking about that myself, but this was all I had available (and also is an amazing record, regardless).

 The total for 10/9-10 at St. Petersburg was 18.85”.

 So, I also dug further into the area’s monthly records for the heaviest events listed in that other link’s heaviest daily records from past years back to 1916 to try to get a feel for whether or not adjacent days would have added enough for a full event’s total to reach Milton’s 18.85”. Based on that extra digging I concluded there’s a very high likelihood that no full event rainfall reached that. The closest event actually looks like storm #1 of 1915, which gave them 15.45” on Aug 2nd. But for even that one there are no indications that the event total exceeded 18.85”. Thus it is my belief that Milton not only produced their heaviest daily rainfall on record but also their wettest full event rainfall in recorded history.

[Chinook]

9 hours ago, GaWx said:

This tornado outbreak was noted as having the most warnings for FL of any day in their recorded history. It was also noted as having the 2nd largest number of warnings for any day for any state, second only to AL in the great 2011 outbreak:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Super_Outbreak

Here is the summary and (partial) map of the 126 tornado warnings from 5:00am Wednesday to 5:00am Thursday

[wdrag]

A couple of things bother me about data use:  

Poweroutage.us...  not many media are aware, or I'm in error:  The listing is meters without power.  That equates to a larger number of people without power (the going relationship is multiple 2.5X, though may be a little high). Still,  unless clarified otherwise,  power outage map reflects meters out, but the number of people without power higher.   I personally like the percentage of the state being without power better... in this case nearly 30% at peak outage yesterday. 

 

A lot has been made about the Number of TOR warnings issued for this event.  While the data is still incomplete (storm data),  I checked via IEM COW,  preliminary verification 12z/9-12z/10... and give or take depending on your resources... in this 24 hour period there were 120 TOR warnings (MLB, MIA, TPA combined).  My concern is only 37 verified as TOR's (so far).  Again,  when comparing days of TOR's and the various EF against the background historically (only the last 35 years since the 88D came into existence), we have amped up verification with better supporting documentation.  I prefer tempering # of warnings (TOR's are a difficult hazard to verify) as a severity indicator and just going with the reality. No doubt it was a big day with killer storms from multiple hazards embedded within the excellent Milton tracking (cone) by NHC.

I say the same thing about Extreme Wind Warnings:  This is only a very recent addition (~2005) to our hazards. 

[bluewave]

I have noticed that the model forecasts which the official forecasts are based on have had too much of a left of track bias with the major hurricanes near the Southwest and Central Florida Gulf coast in recent years. Not sure if this is somehow related to frictional effects of the hurricane circulation encountering the FL west Coast or another factor? In any event, this has worked out for Tampa Bay since they never want to see the RFQ of a major hurricane landfall. So the storm was about 25-30 miles to the right of some of the earlier forecasts. Ian and Irma followed a similar forecast evolution pattern but were a little further right. Perhaps related to the longer land interaction?