Hurricane Milton intensifies and forms the first hurricane on its way to Florida

The cyclone has increased in size in the last few hours and its tropical storm force has extended to about 400 kilometers from its center.

Hurricane Milton has increased in size in the past few hours towards the west coast of Florida in the southeast of the US, where the first hurricane has already formed, and the area is expected to be the worst storm of this century.

According to the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC), Milton, a Category 4, the most severe final, lost some intensity and had maximum sustained winds of 215 kilometers per hour this afternoon.

However, the cyclone has increased in size and its tropical storm-force winds have extended about 400 kilometers from its center.

In an update published at 15:00 (20:00 in Lisbon), the Meteorological Center indicated that this tropical storm has already started to move inland along the west coast of Florida, minutes before, a hurricane formed in the central regions. and south of the state.

The system is located 180 kilometers west of Fort Myers, Lee County (west coast of Florida) and 195 kilometers southwest of Tampa, on the same coast, and is moving northeast at 26 kilometers per hour.

According to the forecast track, Milton’s center will cross the eastern Gulf of Mexico today and make landfall sometime Wednesday night into Thursday along the west-central coast of Florida, a large area under a hurricane warning. It crosses the peninsula into the Atlantic Ocean.

Forecasters expect Milton to be an “extremely dangerous and large-scale” hurricane when it makes landfall in Florida tonight, and to maintain hurricane strength as it moves up the peninsula early Thursday morning.

Milton is forecast to “gradually weaken” as it moves eastward over the western Atlantic, making it likely to become a tropical storm by Friday.

Milton’s heavy rains on the Florida peninsula through Thursday will bring “disastrous surges and the risk of urban flooding,” especially in areas where coastal and inland flooding is combined.

The United States Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) warned that Hurricane Milton could be “catastrophic and deadly” this Wednesday, and asked people to leave the area in the last hour and “those who cannot immediately seek safe places”. .

More than 30,000 people have already taken shelter in 149 shelters set up across Florida in anticipation of Hurricane Milton’s imminent arrival.

In a press conference, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said this Wednesday that open shelters have the capacity to house more than 200,000 people and reiterated his appeal to those living in mandatory evacuation zones to do so urgently.

This week saw thousands of vehicles leave the Tampa area, causing traffic jams on state highways, as toll roads were removed to facilitate evacuation of coastal areas from danger zones where water is expected to rise up to four meters.

US President Joe Biden warned Tuesday that Hurricane Milton would be the worst hurricane to hit Florida in a century and urged people in the storm’s path to evacuate as soon as possible.