Hurricane Milton grew to a Category 5 storm in the Gulf of Mexico on Monday. It is expected to hit land on the west coast of Florida mid-week.
North Carolina shouldn’t be too affected by the storm, which had steady winds of up to 150 mph as of Monday morning.
Where is Hurricane Milton now?
The storm was getting stronger early Monday morning and was just west of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula. The National Hurricane Center’s predicted track shows that the storm will move east on Monday and hit the tip of the peninsula around midnight or early Tuesday morning.
Storm surges and winds strong enough to kill will hit the Yucatan Peninsula, according to weather forecasters.
Once it gets there, the storm will likely move northeast toward Florida.
When will Hurricane Milton hit Florida?
On Tuesday and Wednesday, Milton is likely to move across the Gulf and toward Florida. Tuesday night or Wednesday morning, most of Florida’s west coast was under a hurricane watch. The heart of the storm could hit land around 6 or 7 p.m. Wednesday, close to Tampa.
Forecasters say winds strong enough to be a tropical storm will hit Florida’s west coast on Wednesday morning. The storm is supposed to bring heavy rain, and in some places the water level could rise up to 12 feet.
Forecasters say the storm will move northeast across the state and then hit the Atlantic Ocean. The storm’s center should be over water off the east coast of Florida by Thursday morning.
Will Hurricane Milton impact North Carolina? And when?
Because it is so big and strong, Hurricane Milton will send winds out from the middle of the storm.
As Milton moves across Florida and into the Atlantic, tropical storm-force winds will hit southern Georgia, coastal South Carolina, and the southern coast of North Carolina from Wednesday night through Thursday night.
Forecasts for Carolina Beach to Hatteras say that rip currents are more likely to happen and that the seas will be rough from Wednesday to late Thursday.
There may be some minor flooding along the coast, especially during high waves during the day.
As the storm moves away, the southern coast of North Carolina will have wind gusts of up to 20 mph on Wednesday and Thursday.
What about storms Kirk and Leslie?
- As of Monday afternoon, Kirk was a post-tropical storm with winds of up to 75 mph. The National Hurricane Center says the storm will be in the north central Atlantic and move east, far from the United States.
- Hurricane Leslie was in the south-central Atlantic Ocean on Monday afternoon and had winds of up to 85 mph. The storm is expected to move northwest and then north-northwest over the ocean for the next five days, according to the Hurricane Center. By Friday or Saturday, Leslie should hit strong wind shear as it crosses the ocean. This is what usually breaks up or weakens a storm.