Forecasters warned for days that Tampa could be staring down “the big one” — a direct hit from a major hurricane that threatened to submerge much of Florida’s second-largest metro area with never-before-seen storm surge.
The nightmare scenario didn’t happen. Hurricane Milton tracked slightly south of its worst-case trajectory, making landfall Wednesday night in Sarasota County. Storm surge, overall, was lower than the water levels driven by Hurricane Helene two weeks prior.
Yet it was still a record-breaking storm, dumping historic rainfall along the coast and spawning tornadoes that carved a path of destruction across multiple counties.
Scientists say climate change, including unusually warm waters in the Gulf of Mexico, likely worsened its explosive intensification into a Category 5 cyclone before it weakened and made landfall as a Category 3.
