Hurricane Milton restrengthened into a powerful Category 5 storm Tuesday evening as it barreled across the Gulf of Mexico’s warm waters on a path for the west coast of Florida, where mass evacuations clogged highways as people prepared for a potentially historic storm to make landfall as early as Wednesday night. Some communities, like those in and around the Tampa Bay area, were still reeling from the impacts of Hurricane Helene less than two weeks ago.
“Fluctuations in intensity are likely while Milton moves across the eastern Gulf of Mexico, but Milton is expected to be a dangerous major hurricane when it reaches the west-central coast of Florida Wednesday night.” the National Hurricane Center said.
CBS News Meteorologist Nikki Nolan said the latest forecast track shows Milton making landfall over Sarasota, Florida, sometime overnight Wednesday and into Thursday because it has slowed.
“I think the most recent models have it somewhere in Manatee County, just south of Tampa Bay,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said in a briefing Tuesday. “But I would just tell people, one, we’re going to have impacts far beyond wherever the eye of the storm is. Two, you can make landfall anywhere from Citrus County down into Southwest Florida. We’ll know more over the next 12 to 18 hours. But just, cones, all this stuff you see, the impacts will be broader than that, specifically with respect to storm surge.”