UPDATE: Hurricane Milton dips to strong Category 4 storm as it heads for Florida landfall

October 9, 2024 MeighTimbol News Comments Off

Published October 9, 2024

Hurricane Milton was barreling across the Gulf of Mexico as a strong Category 4 storm, bordering Category 5, Wednesday morning on a path toward Florida’s central

Milton’s sustained wind speeds dipped before 8 a.m. Eastern Time to 155 miles per hour, which is just 1 mph below the marker for Category 5. That was down sightly from 160 miles per hour recorded earlier Wednesday, when forecasters described it as a “catastrophic” hurricane.

“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,” the Miami-based hurricane center said early Wednesday.

The National Weather Service in Tampa Bay described Milton as “a historic storm for the west coast of Florida” that could prove to be the worst to hit Tampa Bay in more than a century.

What time will Hurricane Milton make landfall?

CBS News meteorologist Nikki Nolan said the latest forecast track shows Milton making landfall over or near Sarasota, Florida, after about 2 a.m. ET. Milton is expected to be a low-end Category 4 hurricane at the time, Nolan said, which would put its winds at the bottom of the 130-156 mph range.

Forecasts updated by the hurricane center Wednesday morning showed Milton tracking just off the coast of Florida, in Sarasota Bay, at around 5 a.m. Thursday. Its sustained winds will be about 130 mph at that point, they predicted. But the hurricane center also cautioned against following certain forecast details too closely, like the exact landfall location.