Flhurricane.com - Central Florida Hurricane Center - Tracking Storms since 199531 Years of Hurricanes Without the Hype - Since 1995

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While I have tremendous faith and confidence in the NHC, both the track Milton takes into FL’s west coast and where it crosses the east coast are dependent on two course changes. The first is a change in course toward the NE as Milton approaches the Gulf coast. The second is a slight change more towards the east as it makes landfall. The timing and extent of those moves can significantly affect where Milton makes landfall and where it exits on the Atlantic side.

In 2005 Rita was supposed to track right over our little neighborhood 12 miles inland 72 hours before landfall. While I was stuck in the mass exodus from Houston, the forecast started shifting east ~36 hrs before landfall. It ended up coming ashore ~100 miles east of us.

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Just a quick add on, The ensemble runs show a variance of potential tracks, The spread of the ensemble can give a reasonable sense of the most likely range of paths. In this case the spread matches the NHCs uncertainty spread.

- Milton storm center could hit anywhere from 50 miles north of Tampa, to 50 miles south of Tampa.
- Milton is forecast to have an expanded wind-field, so hurricane force winds should be expected all along the coast.
- All these small variations in track make a huge difference for Tampa Bay, a direct strike, versus a track south of the bay, or a strike north of the bay, each will have dramatically different impacts for the area.

There's no need to hype the intensity of the storm, a landfalling Cat 3 or 4 into western Florida is going to be bad enough!

Everyone be safe.

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M. S. Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Georgia Tech - May 2020
U. Arizona PhD Student

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