Milton strengthens to Category 5 hurricane
Milton rapidly intensified to a Category 5 hurricane late Monday morning.
Within hours, Milton strengthened to a Category 2, then a Category 3, then a Category 4 and finally a Category 5.
Milton now ranks as the third-greatest 24-hour wind speed intensification for a hurricane in the Atlantic Basin. (Records are based on data since the satellite era began in the 1960s.)
Good thing they removed climate change from being a thing discussed in the legislature. That should fix things.
This graphic from The Weather Channel is terrifying.
Most tsunamis are less than 10 feet high
https://www.weather.gov/safety/tsunami-about
Cities can't be protected from this long-term.
I'm surprised DeSantis hasn't required that the storm surge be listed in meters to make it appear smaller and less of an issue.
Meters are communist. He's dumb enough to require it be listed in leagues.
Use decameters to make the number smaller and less people will understand or care.
He's coming for his red stapler. You stole it. Now it is time for revenge.
Milton could put strychnine in the guacamole.
Headed straight for L Ron Hubbard.
So is trump at Mar a Lego right now standing proudly on the front lawn for this? Is he staying there, "standing his ground" against the "climate hoax"?
Or is he hiding somewhere else safe, with an excuse, like a coward who's actually afraid of climate change?
'Just turn the green energy wind turbines around and blow the hurricane away, or just shoot at it! '
Trump: "Just nuke it!"
Climate change is the biggest existential threat we face. One fan be afraid of hurricanes and also be dumb enough to not believe in climate change.
These are two equally obvious statements. The latter probably even more so.
There's no need to try and out stupid them.
Well that's on the East Coast so. Not really a big deal. But I know that's not your point
Inshallah it will be a big deal on the East coast
Good thing DeSantis won't pick up the phone from Biden or Harris to start funding relief.
At least the insurance companies will only have to rebuild some houses once after 2 hurricanes
If your policy covers wind they claim the damage is from water. If your policy covers water, they claim the damage is from wind. If your policy covers both, they claim a hurricane is exempt as an act of god.
I want to bitch about insurance companies but insurance is for something that is unavoidable.
All this shit is becoming more and more avoidable.
Insurance companies don't build shit. They just collect money from people, and sometimes give some of it back.
Many insurance companies won't even insure homes in much of Florida.
And the rest are probably planning to.
What insurance companies? They all backed out of Florida years ago. Now it’s state funded home insurance footing the bill.
I read a thing recently that insurance companies are getting increasingly skittish all over the country, even places that wouldn't traditionally be considered risky, because yay, climate change.
The interesting thing about it was that insurance companies' insurance is increasingly the thing that's causing issues, because it's getting harder for the risk to be spread out. That is to say that insurance companies financially rely on areas with low rates of natural disasters because they end up being a net positive due to insurance premiums and no need for payout. Fewer of these "safe" areas mean the insurance companies struggle to stay solvent and have to rely on their own insurance policies to have their back, but those meta-insurance companies have apparently been historically loud about climate change — probably because besides the government, they're the ones who have to pony up
No problem. The 0ld coots in Florida that vote won’t be around when the bill comes due.
If people don't have the common sense to not build houses in places that are guaranteed to be destroyed by a natural disaster sooner than later, then I shouldn't have to subsidize their rebuilding costs through my insurance premiums.
Yeah, used to be that insurance costs were almost directly skewed based on risk. But then people were upset that it costed so much to insure some places(the ones that should be prohibitively expensive to insure). And then slowly over time they baked in little increases in price everywhere else to subsidise huge price cuts in those areas to out-compete the companies that put the onus entirely on the people taking risks. Eventually, as it became more and more widespread to do that, it became financially more viable to spread it out rather than have drastically more expensive areas. And now we all have to partially cover people who are taking way more risk than we would.
Currently in my house in Florida, where I am looks to be not on the direct path but not completely free. Hurricanes can move a lot, especially when they get on land and staet losing speed.
Once we evacuated 5 hours in a car with all our animals (at the time 2 big sweaty dogs) in a car that wasnt even the size of a minivan. We packed everything we needed just in case. Once we got inside the hotel we booked we took a ~2 hour nap and upon checking the storm again it had moved to come right to where the hotel is. We then had to drive 5 hours BACK home where we began.
Anyhoo, wish us luck! I don't wanna evacuate with 4 cats and a large dog haha
UPDATE: 5:30 10/8
I got 5+ 'amber alerts' today. They just wouldn't stop haha
Good luck to you and your family. I don't know anyone in Florida, so I will be thinking of you as a proxy for all the people I am concerned for in the potential path of this hurricane.
I wish you luck trifling toad🤞 Escaping a situation with just people is difficult, with additional animals makes it so much more stressful. Especially cats since they have to be put in a crate and need a litter box etc.
My first thought was, "5 Amber alerts amd a hurricane.. good god what's going on in Florida?!"
You had me even more worried there for a second.
Within hours, Milton strengthened to a Category 2, then a Category 3, then a Category 4 and finally a Category 5.
Someone had a word quota to fill.
Probably submitted the article with 1.1 line spacing and 13 point font
NOAA changed Milton's heading on Hurricanes.gov to plead with people to listen to evacuation orders.
We'll all be very happy to feel silly if this doesn't go the way it looks like it's going to go. But please for the love of humanity get out of the way of this thing.
I was listening to a live stream with a couple meteorologists explaining everything. they were fairly jovial and laid back seeming guys but at one point, one of them got a deadly serious tone to his voice and started talking about how this one can't be rode out, can't be survived.
I've lived in the Tampa Bay area my entire life, never evacuated before, and I left last night. Fuck Milton. Not worth riding this one out.
Why evacuate? Just write your name, DoB, and SSN on our arms and legs, and use a waterproof sharpie for that. Just in case, you know?
I mean I'd rather have you, not your pieces.
Did you mean https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/ ? Your URL doesn't seem to work.
I guess their god doesn't like florida. I wonder why?
On a more serious note I really hope all the decent people of florida the best of luck. To the rest I hope you only get thoughts and prayers.
Floridas gonna be the next Atlantis, a mysterious land that vanished under the ocean from which tales came of strange people comitting outragous deeds. Future historians will see the tales of the mighty 'Florida Men' and assume it was some kind of myth.
More like Doggerland a place having verifiably existed, and which would hold answers to what man's primitive ancestors were doing, but which we don't really go to look at, because studying shit that's underwater is expensive and we're not that interested.
I wonder why?
Anytime Americans are asked which state would you get rid of, Florida is the top answer.
Maybe their god is starting to listen.
/s
I'm gonna tell myself that this is finally bad enough to spur widespread action on global warming as a way of feeling better about it and you can all preemptively shut up with your reality checks.
Tbh I've learned a lot about how thermal energy affects these storms and I gotta say, the only people who are gonna be living in Florida 20 years from now are people who live in submarines.
We ought to be executing oil company CEOs for treason.
In Germany more than 200 people died in a severe flooding in 2021. Just 2 month prior the conservative party CDU removed flood protection laws in one of the states most affected. In one of the towns completely destroyed they were again voted strongest just a few months later.
Are you doing okay? I feel kind of the same way I think.
I’m gonna tell myself that this is finally bad enough to spur widespread action on global warming
I, too, want to believe that humans are capable for caring enough about themselves, each other, and their descendants in order to put in place measures to make the world better for everyone.
Florida... Give him back his stapler, like right now.
Ok, I, I set the state on fire.
I was told I could inundate Tampa at a reasonable volume from 9 to 11
And get him some cake. Because last time he didn't get a piece of cake.
Hurricanes don't like it when you ban books. Prayin for you, florida man.
A lot of whats about to happen to Florida in the coming months will be self inflicted because of their politics.
florida is like 55% republican. I'd wager many know how dumb it is
hi from Europe, from here it looks like we brought this unto ourselves together.
"Climate change isn't real"
Don't look up
What. The. Fuck.
I'm watching the live stream from WFLA, which is a St. Petersburg station. He's a photo of a bridge leaving the area right now (just after noon on Tuesday Florida time.)
Either most people with cars have evacuated or there are a lot of people who may learn the last lesson of their lives. I hope the former.
Also, the eye apparently will pass right over Cape Canaveral.
They've been evacuating all day, i was watching streams with roads bumper to bumper at 8am today
Cat 5 don’t fuck around.
Good luck Florida.
Time to break out the Sharpie and fix this, Donald!
Longer article if you want more info: https://apnews.com/article/hurricane-milton-helene-florida-557c5c512135e0a8661b298e45e17c92
Ohh shit.
So how much overlap is there with the previous Helene path?
Minimal. Helene went north, and really only hit the pan handle area, Milton is going East and is going to pass through the middle of Florida.
Even though it was like 100 miles off shore, the Tampa Bay area had an 8 foot storm surge with Helene that killed 12 people and ruined tens of thousands of homes and businesses. There are piles of debris everywhere along the coast that are going to become projectiles in hurricane force winds of they can't be picked up in time. Almost the entire western coast of Florida saw significant impact from Helene
At least mid Florida is mostly higher elevation for dealing with the storm surge. The winds will be brutal.
One of the things I’m wondering about is whether Helene chopped up the water and caused some overturning/cooling that may lower surface temps.
And if it did (or did so to a meaningful degree), is that helping to temper Milton before it makes landfall?
And I guess I’m commenting here because you seemed so confident. (Maybe you’re just making it up as you go along, too. Who knows?!)
Little, this is going to hit Florida directly (moving east from the gulf) and then go into the Atlantic. It won't make it into the rest of the country, fortunately.
Unless it does one of those classic 180s where it swings back around and hits the atlantic
For direct path on landfall, probably none unless it turns northwards. But the west coast of florida just ate the rain, storm surge and wind from Helene and will now get the full brunt of Milton.
The panhandle is getting a lot of rain, but there is a lot of overlap with Ian's path... namely our house :/
A lot of overlap from the flooding, more wind from Milton. I know a few people who have had to gut their houses already from Helene and expect it to flood again this week.
You would think religious people would say this is a sign. They probably do but apply it in the wrong direction.
In the 2000's, religious people would blame hurricanes on things like gay marriage.
And the radio waves were just full of their bloviating
It's only a sign when it hits blue states. In red states it's HAARP or the Jewish space lasers.
Or it was a test and anyone who didn't survive wasn't faithful enough.
Yeah, they think it's a sign that "too many gays" are now in Florida, and God has to punish the sodomites.
Trying to get Florida Republicans to do any amount of introspection would be like trying to teach an ant to play basketball.
It turns out it is a sign of Dems having weather control devices.
Of all the gay lasers, the purple ones and those of higher frequency like UV and EUV have the most photonic power.
just makes them delve into conspiracy thinking even more
Surely climate change had nothing to do with this!
Doesn't matter, as long as companies like BP, Chevron, et al can keep extracting that value! They would personally strangle your grandma if they thought it would make them more money.
This storm has reached 180mph at its peak. Have you ever braced wind at that speed? I've ridden at 120mph on my motorcycle (at a drag strip). The wind, even with a full face helmet and visor, was so extreme that it was hard to hold on and my ears were ringing afterward despite having earplugs in. This insanity corresponds to a few seconds of a category 3 hurricane. This hurricane's winds are like that felt by squids on literbikes doing top speed runs.
To add to what you've said: if you've ever hit a bug (or anything else) at those speeds you notice it. A junebug will leave a fairly decent bruise on exposed skin, and for comparison a paintball out of a marker travels about 190 mph.
Imagine the random far more substantial debris flying around during a hurricane near those speeds.
Yeah, I def prefer octopuses on gallonbikes, imperial cephalopods with 8 arms only FTW!
...i've done a buck fourty-five in my convertible with the top down: it's LOUD...at one fifty-five, pushing with all two hundred horsepower, my car can't make any further headway against the wind and buildings are a lot less aerodynamically efficient...
...i've ridden out a half-dozen hurricanes but category fives are get-out-of-town devastating...
I saw some models basically saying how unpredictable this hurricane is to the point that forecasts are all over the map, from landfall as Cat 2 all the way up to it maintaining Cat 5. Most predictions think it will land as a strong Cat 3, but the variance is really high.
How about boosting the funding for FEMA? Another cluster fuck in the making thanks to the GOP.
Why? If people die because they don't fund fema and Florida governor don't take calls from Harris, then they blame it in Biden's America. The immigrants took all the funding for hurricanes, remember?
Ugh, I hate so many things right now.
To be honest this Guarantees Florida goes Red this round when it was getting close to turning back to purple. Tampa and Orlando both vote Blue, and many people will get displaced. Mail will be lost, voting locations will be destroyed, and you can't just show up to any polling place to vote. "Oh you moved across the state because your house is flooded, well you can vote 350 miles from where you are now, or you can vote by mail, we sent it to your mailbox that doesn't exist anymore"
Even though Tanya Marunchak’s Belleair Beach home was flooded with more than 4 feet (1.2 meters) of water from Helene, she and her husband were unsure Monday morning if they should evacuate. She wanted to leave, but her husband thought their three-story home was sturdy enough to withstand Milton.
That poor woman. If her husband thinks he’s safe in their “sturdy” home, she should leave him behind.
Florida gonna look like Fallout4 post Hurricane Milton and Hurricane season ain't even over...
Did Helene not eradicate all the idiots?
How are there more?
Graghhhhhh.
Don't hurricanes normally go the other way? I thought they normally blow towards the southwest?
Not since Democrats got behind the controls. /S
Gulf hurricanes can do this, and they can become some of the strongest hurricanes very quickly. One or two of the massive storms in 2005 were gulf hurricanes
Hopefully it'll take out that twat with the giant forehead
Relief this morning when looking at the current track. At least I won't get the core. For now.
We're supposed to go to Tampa this weekend for a tattoo. In the grand scheme of things I know, we've got very little to worry about, but I am wondering if we should just cancel now, or if there's a chance of Tampa being back online by Friday.
If it's only for a tattoo, maybe post pone it? Are you driving there? Only asking cuz plane ticket cancellation vs driving is different cost wise if you can't get a refund. I guess it wouldn't hurt to call the place and ask them what they think is appropriate.
Probably not.
Let's go Milton