At least 13 dead after Hurricane Milton hits Florida as Category 3 storm

Multiple powerful tornadoes ripped across Florida hours before Hurricane Milton made landfall Wednesday, tearing off roofs, overturning vehicles and sucking debris into the air as the black V-shaped columns moved through.

By Wednesday evening, more than 130 tornado warnings associated with Milton had been issued by National Weather Services offices in Florida.

Deaths were reported in St. Lucie County on Florida's Atlantic Coast, but local authorities did not specify how many residents had been killed.

By Wednesday evening, more than 130 tornado warnings associated with Milton had been issued by National Weather Services offices in Florida.

The appearance of tornadoes before and during hurricanes isn't unusual, scientists say, but the twisters' ferocity was.

"It's definitely out of the ordinary," said Northern Illinois University meteorology professor Victor Gensini. "Hurricanes do produce tornadoes, but they're usually weak. What we saw today was much closer to what we see in the Great Plains in the spring."

Tornadoes spawned by hurricanes and tropical storms most often occur in the right-front quadrant of the storm, but sometimes they can also take place near the storm's eyewall, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The heat and humidity present in the atmosphere during such storms and changes in wind direction or speed with height, known as wind shear, contribute to their likelihood.

"There's an incredible amount of swirling going on," Gensini said of the conditions that allowed for the twisters to grow. "Those tornadoes were just in a very favorable environment."

The warming of the oceans by climate change is making hurricanes more intense, but Gensini said he did not know of any connection between human-caused warming and the deadly tornadoes that Floridians experienced with Milton.

Luke Culver, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Miami, said he wasn't sure whether Milton had spawned a record number of tornados, but he pointed out that only 64 Florida tornado warnings were associated with Hurricane Ian, which hit the Tampa Bay area as a massive storm in 2022.

Florida has more tornadoes per square mile than any other state. But they're usually not as severe as those in Midwest and Plains. However, a big outburst of powerful twisters killed 42 people and injured over 260 in Central Florida in the space of a few hours in February 1998.

Hurricane Milton is now heading out into the Atlantic Ocean as a Category 1 hurricane, having completed its swing across Florida.

The eye of the storm is now passing past Cape Canaveral, having taken less than eight hours to make its way across the Florida peninsula.

Wind speed remains at around 85 mph, with movement northeast at 18 mph.

Hurricane Milton is now heading out into the Atlantic Ocean as a Category 1 hurricane, having completed its swing across Florida.

With its mighty strength and its dangerous path, Hurricane Milton powered into a very rare threat flirting with experts' worst fears.

Warm water fueled amazingly rapid intensification that took Milton from a minimal hurricane to a massive Category 5 in less than 10 hours. It weakened, but quickly bounced back. And when its winds briefly reached 180 mph, its barometric pressure, a key measurement for a storm's overall strength, was among the lowest ever recorded in the Gulf of Mexico this late in the year.

Hurricane Milton slammed into cities with winds of more than 100 miles per hour, all right on the heels of Helene.

At its most fierce, Milton almost maxed out its potential intensity given the weather factors surrounding it.

"Everything that you would want if you're looking for a storm to go absolutely berserk is what Milton had," Colorado State University hurricane researcher Phil Klotzbach said.

Milton also grew so potent because it managed to avoid high-level cross winds that often decapitate storms, especially in autumn. As Milton neared Florida it hit those winds, called shear, which ate away at its strength, as meteorologists had forecasted.

The National Weather Service says it has received reports of multiple collapsed cranes due to high winds in St. Petersburg, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) south of Siesta Key, where Milton made landfall.

St. Petersburg Fire Rescue confirmed one collapse late Wednesday about six blocks from the city's pier. There were no reports of injuries.

The crane was at the site of a 515-foot-tall (157-meter-tall) luxury high-rise building under construction that is being billed as one of the tallest buildings on the west coast of Florida. It was scheduled to be completed in summer 2025.