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.)

  • WoahWoah@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    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.

    • WoahWoah@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      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.

      • Gammelfisch@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        Bullshit. Go read the FEMA website about the their funding, especially how the disaster relief and immigrant funding is completely separated. Furthermore, the $750.00 is a Serious Needs Assistance that helps people to buy food, baby formula and the basics.

      • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        1 month ago

        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”

          • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            1 month ago

            Yarp, remember Florida took to long in 2000 to get the votes counted when Florida’s supreme Court was turned down by the U.S. supreme Court to allow time to do one final recount as things were off.

            They awarded all 25 Florida electorial votes to George Bush, and Gore stepped down to allow it to be a civil process.

            If it takes to long to count Desantis only needs one round of Votes to show they were ahead, and stall on placing electors using his election police he created at his side to help the U.S. supreme Court double down on their original ruling 24 years ago

            https://www.britannica.com/event/Bush-v-Gore

            The count showed Gore won the Vote, would have won the election. Without it, we may have never invaded Iraq.

            https://www.cbsnews.com/news/gore-comes-out-swinging-on-iraq/

            Since then, Florida has outgrown New York, going from 25 electoral votes to 30. The effects of Florida going 1 way or another is huge

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    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.

  • Itdidnttrickledown@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    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.

    • CheeseNoodle@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      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.

      • Dasus@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        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.

    • Grandwolf319@sh.itjust.works
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      1 month ago

      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

  • Agent641@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    Don’t hurricanes normally go the other way? I thought they normally blow towards the southwest?

    • ghen@sh.itjust.works
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      1 month ago

      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

  • JaggedRobotPubes@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    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.

    • Samvega@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      1 month ago

      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.

    • Fedizen@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      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.

    • Saleh@feddit.org
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      1 month ago

      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.

  • SmokumJoe@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    You would think religious people would say this is a sign. They probably do but apply it in the wrong direction.

    • warm@kbin.earth
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      1 month ago

      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.

    • signalsayge@lemm.ee
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      1 month ago

      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.

    • AmbiguousProps@lemmy.today
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      1 month ago

      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.

      • WalnutLum@lemmy.ml
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        1 month ago

        Unless it does one of those classic 180s where it swings back around and hits the atlantic

    • ryathal@sh.itjust.works
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      1 month ago

      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.

      • Monument@lemmy.sdf.org
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        1 month ago

        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?!)

        • Krauerking@lemy.lol
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          1 month ago

          That’s probably why everyone is super split on the landfall category of the hurricane.

          That should play an impact and overcast and heavy rain should make for a less welcoming Florida.

          However we have seen that shallower waters by the coast have been very very hot lately and do a lot to bump up hurricanes as they near the shallows and it could intensify the storm again as it nears land.

          Tampa doesn’t get hit directly by storms and they don’t generally form to category 5 hurricanes in about 12 hours in the gulf of Mexico so there is a lot of new science and prediction work to be done here so it’s a lot of guessing till it does.

      • protist@mander.xyz
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        1 month ago

        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

          • protist@mander.xyz
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            1 month ago

            Well yes, two direct hits would be worse. Was just saying Helene had a pretty severe impact on the areas that are going to be hit directly this time