Hurricane Milton (2024)

After an unusual eastward track across the Gulf, Milton made landfall on Siesta Key, Florida, at 0030 UTC October 10, 2024 (8:30 p.m. EDT October 9), as a Category 3 hurricane with 100-knot (115 mph) winds.¹ Measured gusts reached 102 mph at Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport and 101 mph at Albert Whitted Airport in St. Petersburg.^2,3 Storm surge flooded 6 to 9 feet above ground from Venice south to Boca Grande, with an estimated peak of up to 10 feet near Manasota Key, where NWS survey crews found fast water and waves had blown out the first floors of many structures.¹ Surge reached 5 to 8 feet in northern Charlotte Harbor and along the Peace River, while Tampa Bay, north of the landfall, saw 1 to 2 feet.¹

Rain totaled up to 20.40 inches near St. Petersburg, 17.20 inches near Ormond Beach and 14.83 inches near Orlando, causing widespread river and urban flooding and record crests on the Hillsborough River.¹ For Pinellas County, NOAA's Storm Events Database lists 274 homes destroyed, 2,285 with major damage and 5,376 with minor damage.³ It lists $240 million in property damage from flooding in Volusia County.⁴

On October 9, Milton produced 45 tornadoes on land across South and Central Florida, three of them rated EF-3.¹ The most significant, an EF-3 with peak winds of 155 mph, tracked about 21 miles from Fort Pierce into Indian River County, collapsing more than half of two large warehouses and destroying many mobile and manufactured homes.^1,5 That tornado killed six people, and Storm Events lists $475 million in property damage from it in St. Lucie County.^1,5 NHC counted 12 direct deaths in Florida and cited an NCEI estimate of $34.3 billion in US damage, almost all of it in Florida.¹