As Milton exits Florida, we reflect and have to ask what’s next

Headlines

  • Hurricane Milton is now a non-tropical storm as it moves out to sea.
  • A very historic tornado outbreak, flash flooding, and storm surge were all elements of Milton that were notable in Florida.
  • In the deep Atlantic, Hurricane Leslie is headed out to sea.
  • There are hints of additional development chances late next week in the western Caribbean, but it is way, way too soon to speculate on whether that happens for real or where it would go if it did.

Milton’s mess

Hurricane Milton is moving farther away from Florida this afternoon. We say good riddance. There will be a number of things to discuss in the wake of Milton, from its incredible intensity ramp up to its precipitous weakening and how that may have played a role in surge, track, winds, flooding, and the daytime tornado outbreak in eastern Florida. We’ll place a bookmark here and come back to it at some point in the offseason I think.

Milton is now transitioning from a tropical system to a non-tropical system as it moves out to sea. (Weathernerds.org)

The elements of Milton that were most noteworthy in my opinion:

Each red dot signifies a tornado report from yesterday. The hardest hit area was from Palm City through Fort Pierce into Vero Beach. (NOAA SPC)
  • The huge footprint of heavy, flooding rainfall. We had a wide area of rain totals that exceeded 10 inches with a 100 to 500 year return period between Tampa and Daytona Beach. The flash flooding is likely to have caused significant damage across the region.
Total rainfall in excess of a foot (dark purple) covered a wide area of the I-4 corridor. Heavy rain also occurred to the north into Jacksonville. (NOAA NSSL MRMS)
  • Then, obviously, the storm surge. How bad was it between Longboat Key, Sarasota, Siesta Key, and Venice? That’s only just now becoming clearer. It’s been tough to find hard station data but I have seen a report of 7 foot water levels near Venice, which would equate to at least 6 to 7 feet of surge. One would assume that water levels were somewhat higher to the north of there near Siesta Key and Sarasota, possibly up to 10 feet or so.

Between Milton and Helene, we’ve had a rough few weeks in the Southeast. We hope for the best for those impacted and for the recovery process to be as painless as possible.

What’s next?

In the deep Atlantic we have Hurricane Leslie that is on its last legs as it motors out to sea.

But there are hints on the models at least of a new potential disturbance in the Caribbean. This is still about a week or more out. But it seems that if something were to develop in the next 2 weeks, this is where it would happen.

The potential for new development in the western Caribbean is not zero late next week. But it’s too soon to speculate on what that looks like or where it goes. (Weathernerds.org)

While this will certainly get a lot of folks riled up, it’s important to note that with this being a week or more out, there is no guarantee anything will develop, nor is there any knowledge of where anything will go if it does develop at this point. All we can do right now is speculate that something could possibly develop in the western Caribbean in a week to 10 days. That’s a long time out, so don’t start stressing right now.

45 thoughts on “As Milton exits Florida, we reflect and have to ask what’s next”

  2. As I’m watching these Cat5 monsters grow so rapidly and cause so much misery, I keep thinking that Houston’s luck can’t hold indefinitely. A Cat1 messed us up badly enough. Something like Helene or Milton would likely see Houston suffer the same fate as NOLA post-Katrina: lots of survivors leave for good.

    • The fronts are whats keeping the western gulf safe. It’s extremely rare for Houston to get an october storm. The last one was Jerry back in the 80s, we don’t need to stress out about a “Cat 5” right now.

      • Actually today’s gfs 12z run shows a hurricane that has a barometric pressure of 972 positioned just off shore of Galveston…For Oct 26th..Since this position was at the very end of the animation, we don’t know if this hurricane continues to come straight for us or makes an easterly turn..

        • > Actually today’s gfs 12z run shows a hurricane that has a barometric pressure of 972 positioned just off shore of Galveston…For Oct 26th..Since this position was at the very end of the animation, we don’t know if this hurricane continues to come straight for us or makes an easterly turn..

          Like I posted a few minutes ago. You can’t really trust a model that’s 16 days out. More reliable data should become available whether this develops or not and where it may go, likely mid to end of next week.

          • Yes, true..
            No way we know anything at this stage…
            When I see something near my neck of the woods, it makes me feel that I can’t stop watching though…Even though Texas is historically low with hurricane landfalls this time of year…

        • This is the prime reason why only meteorologists should have access to weather data. You’re talking as if it’s a set in stone storm when the darn thing hasn’t even showed up in the area to form. Again look at history, The last Houston october storm was Jerry. This is 16 I repeat 16 days out, why are you looking at the models that far out?

          • Helene was showing signatures many days out & there’s a CAG down there randomly spitting out trouble. The same CAG that produced Helene & Milton.

            Of course people are concerned. If you’re not concerned, then you haven’t learned.

          • Why do I? I’m not really sure.. Why not?

            I will bet my bottom dollar this gfs model changes with the next run..And this model data will change as often as a clean person brushes his teeth…Until something is closer to the area it wants to hit..

            I take this run with a grain of salt, but same time, I’m a little concerned..Most of the weather experts are saying we can relax for the next 7 to 10 days, which is true..Not the same as saying we can relax for the rest of the season, lol..Actually, I agree, it would be nice if only experts had access to data..

            Hubby and I are pushing 70, and he’s disabled..We don’t move as fast as we used to, we do not like to scramble to get things done..Also, I’ve begun part time work, some jobs I can turn down if the timing isn’t right…

            There’s nothing wrong with sharing our concern for other people to weigh in on…

  3. We should discuss messaging. Tampa mayor said “”I can say without any dramatization whatsoever: If you choose to stay in one of those evacuation areas, you’re going to die,”. Media and meteorologists implied half of 20m Floridians should evac. But Milton fizzled, did minor damage and killing among 20 million Floridians, which always was at tiny chance – even at Cat 5 can’t kill 99.9% of people in modern houses. Skipping numbers and chances and just screaming everyone evac, vaguely, to entire FL state, is unhelpful, makes most have less trust in leaders and meteorologists. Imagine if for Tornado season they yelled at Iowans to evacuate for summer, that may come? Clearly for Hurricanes we are applauding Politicians Crying Wolf to get evacs maybe 10x more broadly than is risk warranted Ask a civil engineer, how many houses will collapse in X storm and kill people, it’s low…. Let’s not wonder why people have little trust in warmings. 10x? Let’s ask a civil engineer!

    • It does appear that the catastrophe that was forecast did not occur, but is that any reason not to warn people of the potential danger?
      Those that hurried to shelters during WWII in Britain after the sirens warned that German planes were on their way to bomb them to hell, yet crawled out of the shelters alive the next day, would not have agreed with you that next time they’ll just ignore the danger.

      • Do you warn people not to walk in parks, since tree limbs can fall and annually kill 200? Why not, if danger is bad and warnings make you a good person. Skipping storm info on actual risk numbers and clearly exaggerating the mood of danger to all of FL is lying. If leader lies then half will ignore them. There are 1000 risks in life, people literally have to choose a path or inaction that has some risk. More people died from car crashes and heart attacks (on road or terrified watching storm news in bed) during this storm, so THE REACTION TO STORM WAS BIGGER KILLER. And lying about facts involving safety of my family is bad, right? Now most of Tampa definitely will ignore Mayor who said they’d die if stay… Adults have to balance and look into numbers, not just flee from any storm or any tree. Screaming at any risk to seem nice, is not nice. And they did NOT evacuate London, right, they did the math. It’s complex and meteorologists are letting the politicians make them all seem like exaggerators and liars. The dumb half evac, the smart mostly rich don’t, so it’s also being cruel to the mostly poor, they wasted week and $3000 on fleeing to Georgia. Suckers, now poorer.. Yes I’m being Devil’s Advocate, but is this wrong. 10x.

        • “And they did NOT evacuate London”
          Some 3 1/2 million children who were evacuated would disagree with you.
          And the millions of others who dispersed themselves into the British countryside every night the bombers came, would also disagree with you.
          Frankly, I think you are getting yourself too worked up.

          • I’m not getting worked up, it’s just words. I just don’t like people claiming to be caring giving unwarranted evac lectures and even orders, which has clearly INCORRECT risk info to poor people. Overall Id say no one past the ocean flood zone about 5 miles inland not in mobile home or ancient house faces more than 1 in 100,000 risk of death, so no poor or middle class should blow $3000 or so a years saving on evac. I could be wrong and idiot, but we should have the discussion, which involves numbers not just your feelings. PS. I have a boat on ocean by Houston, I truly know wow some situations are risky, the boat gets thru Cat 1 barely — to jump from that to idea of evacuating houses in cities 10 miles inland acting like house will totally collapse (no, total collapse is rare) or flood badly (no) seems clearly idiotic, but GROUPTHINK AND LAZY CONCERN has led us to that.. In the past groupthink and lazy thinking often leads to net bad solutions, we should be on look out for this, not just repeat what we hear.

        • The mayor has two choices, urge people to evacuate, or not. There are two outcomes, Tampa gets a direct hit with double digit storm surge, or the storm veers south enough so that the surge is far less. The mayor’s choice has zero effect on what the storm ultimately does, so you have 4 combinations of decision/outcome. The go/small surge, stay/small surge, and go/ large surge scenarios all minimize the loss of life. But stay/ large surge is catastrophe. The mayor did her job, which was to look out for the welfare of her constituents.

          Also comparing an approaching cat5 (not just any storm) to the risks of walking in a park or driving a car is a big logical fallacy. Until and unless it becomes possible to pinpoint landfall with far more accuracy, it’s not fair to say that the mayor was lying. A mere 20 miles, which is a proportionally very tiny shift in a hurricane’s path, was the difference in how bad the storm surge was for Tampa.

          • Storm surge even in cat 5 does not kill everyone in surge zone, maybe 1%. Using “catastrophic” within defining that is not fair. Mayor said 100% would die. Id agree if she said, look, you can’t tell if the 25% worst path and strength will occur, or 10% risk that then your house collapses and all inside die, but that 2.5% risk is worth hassle and $3000 evac cost to avoid. Or say, hey, there’s a 1 in 4 chance of 10,000 Tampa people dead if stay in surge areas. She said 100% definitely will die. Media stretched this to all dying if didn’t evac entire Tampa and W FL region. The smart rich people know their new house won’t collapse so stay. Numbers matter. Stretching things to point of lying matter. …. In London 600000 evacuated mostly due to lack of housing so much was partly damaged, and 10 million stayed showing numbers matter and many should not react to fear.

          • My nieces are poor. Telling them to evacuate would cost them and their family like $2500 and 5 days of driving and waiting and misery. Multiply that by 1m who believed scary claims of storm by media. You take $2500 from 1m poor people, and put them thru this, they IN FUTURE will skip future medical visits to get back that money, will work more overtime, will be more tired and unhappy, and stress leads to divorces and even child abuse. My mom worked at abuse shelter. Saying getting 1m to 5m to evacuate saves lives and has no cost, is just wrong. Some should evacuate, yes. It’s good to care, but bad to not think about bigger picture. I wish we had an economist who knew poverty and storms to advise us, not just us amateurs and even nerd yuppie meteorologists. Happy Autumn!

    • Hi Tom. My mom, older sister, brother in law, nephews, cousin and aunt and uncle live in the Tampa area. They all stayed put and I wish they would have left. My mom’s assisted living facility was fine, my sister and brother in law’s house was fine, and my aunt and uncle went and stayed with my cousin. My cousin’s sunroom was ripped off of her house. My sister’s house was fine, but their farm where they grow vegetables (their primary source of income) was deeply damaged. Plants that were in the fields were destroyed. Their barn that they have a Saturday market in has major roof damage. Catastrophic? No. But definitely a major issue. Also, Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg is roofless. Milton didn’t fizzle. Milton caused a ton of damage in rain, wind and storm surge, along with tornadoes across the state.

      • Milton fizzled, Cat 3 hitting south of Tampa. Denying this is weird. Your family like anyone inland in modern house was fine, not mobile homes. Making old people evac for little risk, risks heart attacks, it’s not nice. FL 2002 building code even mandates buildings newer than this have exterior safe from Cat 5 even.

    • You said “surge” zero times. The reason people were told to evacuate was surge. And they were told that this was too close a call to ignore. And they were told that it would weaken wind-wise but that the surge would still be very bad. If Milton makes landfall 15-20 miles farther north than it did, the story today is a whole lot different. Tampa Bay would have been devastated in the surge zones. It’s easy to Monday Morning QB, but unfortunately it’s not all about civil engineering and wind.

      • I admitted mayor said all in “evacuation areas” would die, and then media stretched this to entire Tampa Metro and W FL…. There are poor single mothers and seniors watching media in Orlando and evacuating to Georgia, so week of misery and $3000 lost, cuz of the scary impression the weather men are giving. Orlando!!! Post 2002 building code construction in FL is basically immune to wind, yet Year of house or apartment is never mentioned as evac factor in media (they even skip that mobile homes owners maybe alone should worry 10x). So, the weather business is scaring in sloppy and uninformative way, and anyone who points this out is called a Monday Morning QB? Guess over scaring single mothers and the elderly isn’t something to worry about?? I have yet to hear ANY NUMBERS ON RISK in media or you, it’s always coming is “catastrophe” and “devastation”, never odds of death –imagine if Medical Doctors refused to give numbers in their advice — the weather warning business has gotten into this awful habit. I could be wrong, I worry about the idiots in Orlando like my extended family and the weather business and leaders just scare them with zero zero reassurance they are probably fine. I could be wrong.

        • Everyone has unique circumstances and we tell people to evacuate and not all of them can. And we say “If you know someone unable or unwilling to evacuate, check on them, help them if you can, etc.” The reality is unfortunate in these areas. By living here, you *have* to assume the risk that this is going to happen every so often. It’s incredibly disruptive, but the reality is that 10 feet of water would be unsurvivable on the Tampa Bay bayfront, so yeah, the language being used has to be harsh because people need to understand that risk. This is why we tell people to always prepare *ahead* of the season for this instance. It’s important for employers to recognize this as well and treat their workforce with dignity — but that’s not something we as a weather blog can make happen. If you want to be critical of leadership, focus on ways for them to make it easier for the socioeconomically disadvantaged to manage such a terrible disruption instead of having to just “pull up their bootstraps” like we hear from so many people (I know you are not saying this). I’m just saying…the forecasts were that if the storm directly hit Tampa, a high likelihood when the forecasts were issued, it would have resulted in 10-15 feet of surge, which by definition would not be survivable unless you were out of that area, in a secure shelter, or at high level. We also need to educate people that they don’t have to evacuate to Georgia. You’re running from the water, not the wind. You can evacuate 5 miles inland and be fine in most cases. So how do we make that easier for people? We need to do better as a society.

  4. I am indeed feeling a bit nervous..I ran the 12z gfs a minute ago..It is showing a system with a 972 barometric pressure coming very close to Houston, maybe hitting us straight on, if it doesn’t turn last minute..To happen on Oct 26th..
    I’ve recently started dog sitting..Earlier this morning, I decided to help one of my walking partners, by fostering her dog for up to a month so she can search for and move to a new apartment…I have to start this assignment by Tuesday afternoon, after I finish my current dog sitting gig..
    No hurricane has good timing, but sheesh..

    • > While this will certainly get a lot of folks riled up, it’s important to note that with this being a week or more out, there is no guarantee anything will develop, nor is there any knowledge of where anything will go if it does develop at this point. All we can do right now is speculate that something could possibly develop in the western Caribbean in a week to 10 days. That’s a long time out, so don’t start stressing right now.

      He covers your concern in this very article. We’ll see what happens over time. A GFS model that’s 16 days out is not something you can remotely begin to trust.

      • This is the problem I have with weather models, people tend to take these things as “This is going to happen.” when I’m willing to bet the next GFS run is going to be way to the east. Its a windshield wiper effect and you have people on social media spreading this as “Look guys a storm is going to hit here!” There’s a reason why the NHC doesn’t post anything beyond 7 days out because the models are so untrust worthy. Before anyone else replies with “What about Helene or milton.” Again, Milton was a left over storm from the pacific and Helene was predicted 7 days out from landfall. So until the NHC says “Hey there might be something forming in this area with X % chance.” Then I’ll take the models seriously until then anytime I see someone panicking beyond the 7 day mark you gotta inject some facts.

        • > This is the problem I have with weather models, people tend to take these things as “This is going to happen.” when I’m willing to bet the next GFS run is going to be way to the east. Its a windshield wiper effect and you have people on social media spreading this as “Look guys a storm is going to hit here!” There’s a reason why the NHC doesn’t post anything beyond 7 days out because the models are so untrust worthy. Before anyone else replies with “What about Helene or milton.” Again, Milton was a left over storm from the pacific and Helene was predicted 7 days out from landfall. So until the NHC says “Hey there might be something forming in this area with X % chance.” Then I’ll take the models seriously until then anytime I see someone panicking beyond the 7 day mark you gotta inject some facts.

          I hear what you’re saying. I’ve been in Houston since 1992 and have seen most of the storms hit. The modeling (including the AI, love it or not) is getting better over time. But 16 days out is way too soon to be evacuating Katy, TX.

          I can’t say that I’m 100% cool, calm, and collected during the season but I’ve learned there’s only so much I can control. Besides, if one does head this way you usually have a 2-5 day window to determine your evacuation or stay plans.

          It’s frustrating when people start panicking as it starts some sort of rippled effect and before you know it the sky is falling from a single comment.

          Dan said we should all have a snickers. Probably not a bad idea, after some Torchys Tacos

          • I’ll have a snickers, a Torchy’s taco aaaand a margarita 🙂

            On a more serious note, it’s not really stress I’m feeling when I’m seeing an early model run 2 + weeks out, target our area…It’s more the feeling like, Oh crap, I need to remember to watch tropics daily, still :-/

          • I’m not saying its not going to happen but statically our chances drop each day after the 24th of September. Am I concerned? Of course, I’d be sweating bullets too if I saw a blob of a Karen in the middle of the gulf. But the weather/steering pattern here in Texas during October makes it difficult (not impossible) for a storm to hit us. Plus have you seen the water vapor view? There’s a metric crap ton of dry air in the Northwestern gulf at the moment. Any storm that goes thru that is gonna have a bad day. Back on point. Is the NHC perfect? no but I tend to put trust in their forecasts over some random guy on youtube. (Omitting names). Now isn’t the time to fearmonger or panicking. Now is the time to twiddle our thumbs and wait for cooler air to come down. Renfest is coming up and its spooky season. So instead freaking out over a hypothetical storm. Lets just sit back and relax. I’m just enjoying the lovely weather we’ve been having and my “snickers” was a lovely meal from Olive Garden haha.

          • Even if 10% chance of late Oct hurricane occurs, its 900 miles of coast from Corpus to Big Bend, a hurricane can only hit 1 place and basically hurt about 45 mile width (5% of 900), so via math a person at Gulf should feel 99.5% safe mid Oct. And Oct usually is only Cat 1s.

  5. I was in Milton’s eyewall last night as it passed over my home in Sarasota. Neat but not something I’d like to experience again.

    • I like Sarasota, glad it survived. If ever I was going to relocate to Florida, either there or maybe Naples would be the choice., both are sensible sized towns. I watched the ballet Swan lake at the local college, it is nice to have culture on the doorstep.

  7. It’s interesting that the GFS is doing all of this warning, but every run has a storm (some not) in a different location. The GFS is especially well known for having disturbing storms at the end of their runs.

    On the other hand, the ECMWF shows absolutely nothing aside from fronts coming through Texas.

  8. Facts are Milton fizzled, Cat 3 not 5 and quickly weakened, went south of Tampa. Thank God. 10 dead not 1000. Just vaguely saying some damage still occurred doesn’t change that…. Your extended family up in hills of E Tampa survived fine you said, why wish they’d evac. Experts even say too many inland evacing clogs the roads and makes the truly in peril at coast stay. So the mostly safe evacing is HARMFUL to FL. Details matter, 10 miles inland is not 1. Age of house matters, FL building code now makes building safe from wind, even Cat 5, and Dade and Miami counties have special High-Velocity code giving even more. Google 2002 building code changes and

  9. I wanted to reply to the person being critical about evacuation..

    Many of us already know the state of our older homes, yes many of us are not rich, we don’t welcome the costs incurred with the evacuation process…Our home is an early 1980s home, here in Texas..

    We all have our own personal reasons for staying or going..

    I agree, don’t leave during the evacuation rush..The last minute rush is meant for people not wanting to leave, but who are ordered to, IMO…

    Hubs and I have had a bad year, so we haven’t had the gumption or money yet to get rid of two big, not so healthy trees next to our house…We plan to deal with these trees in the coming months..
    Hubby has medical needs, he would not do so well spending a week without power when it’s 90s or 100s out..

    So if we were expecting *any* kind of hurricane in our neck of the woods, we would be prone to leaving…We have family who’s outside hurricane alley, so we would make our way to him WELL before any evacuation rush…

    I’m just ready for hurricane season to be over..

  10. Hey Matt, didn’t Milton hit some increased sheer as it approached? Was that a factor in the tornado out break? Sheer always seems to be a serious factor in outbreaks in tornado alley

    • Great point, Rebecca…this is something I will need to address in a future post. Generally, the type of shear that impacts tropical systems is a bit different from the type of shear that impacts severe storm risk. In tropical systems, it’s usually shear at the jet stream level led mostly by wind speed. In severe weather, it’s shear at the lower levels of the atmosphere and how those winds change with height.

Comments are closed.