THOUSANDS of people are fleeing Florida as a monster 155mph hurricane barrels towards the state.
Hurricane Milton’s near-record winds and expected storm surge are set to bring destruction to areas already reeling from Helene’s devastation 12 days ago.
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The Category 4 hurricane is expected to make landfall in Florida on Wednesday.
More than a million people have to ordered to evacuate from its path – with a further six million put under hurricane watch warning.
The storm will be the worst to impact the Tampa area in more than 100 years if it stays on the current track, according to the National Weather Service.
Mayor Jane Castor warned the city’s almost 400,000 residents to urgently evacuate.
She told CNN: “I can say this without any dramatization whatsoever: if you choose to stay in one of those evacuation areas, you are going to die.
“This is something that I have never seen in my life and anyone who was born and raised in the Tampa Bay area has never seen this before.”
Florida governor Ron DeSantis said the hurricane is already far stronger than predicted two days ago.
He said: “This is a ferocious hurricane.
“At the strength it is now, this is a really, really strong storm.
“The effects of that, not just from the storm surge but from wind damage and debris, will be really, really significant.
“This is not a storm you want to take a risk on.”
Orlando meteorologist Noan Bergren described the storm as “nothing short of astronomical”.
He wrote on X: “I am at a loss for words to meteorologically describe you the storms small eye and intensity.”
The Interstate 75 northbound was bumper to bumper and moving at just 7mph on Monday afternoon as terrified residents fled the state.
Authorities have opened up the left northbound shoulder of Interstate 75 from Tampa to Interstate 10 in north Florida, and along eastbound Interstate 4, to help motorists get away.
Almost the entirety of Florida’s west coast was under a hurricane warning early Tuesday as the Category 4 storm and its 155mph winds crept toward the state at 9mph.
The strongest Atlantic hurricane on record is 1980’s Allen, which reached wind speeds of 190mph as it moved through the Caribbean and Gulf before striking Texas and Mexico.
What is a hurricane and how do they form?
A HURRICANE is another name for a tropical cyclone – a powerful storm that forms over warm ocean waters near the equator.
Those arising in the Atlantic or eastern Pacific are called hurricanes, while those in the western Pacific and Indian Ocean are dubbed typhoons or cyclones.
North of the equator they spin anticlockwise because of the rotation of the earth, however, they turn the opposite way in the southern hemisphere.
Cyclones are like giant weather engines fuelled by water vapour as it evaporates from the sea.
Warm, moist air rises away from the surface, creating a low-pressure system that sucks in air from surrounding areas – which in turn is warmed by the ocean.
As the vapour rises it cools and condenses into swirling bands of cumulonimbus storm clouds.
The system grows and spins faster, sucking in more air and feeding off the energy in seawater that has been warmed by the sun.
At the centre, a calm “eye” of the storm is created where cooled air sinks towards the ultra-low pressure zone below, surrounded by spiralling winds of warm air rising.
The faster the wind, the lower the air pressure at the centre and the storm grows stronger and stronger.
Tropical cyclones usually weaken when they hit land as they are no longer fed by evaporation from the warm sea.
But they often move far inland – dumping vast amounts of rain and causing devastating wind damage – before the “fuel” runs out and the storm peters out.
Hurricanes can also cause storm surges when the low air pressure sucks the sea level higher than normal, swamping low-lying coasts.
Forecasters warned of a possible 8- to 12-foot storm surge in Tampa Bay.
Milton’s center could come ashore Wednesday in the Tampa Bay region, which has not endured a direct hit by a major hurricane in more than a century.
Scientists expect the system to weaken slightly before landfall, though it could retain hurricane strength as it churns across central Florida toward the Atlantic Ocean.
That would largely spare other states ravaged by Helene, which killed at least 230 people on its path from Florida to the Appalachian Mountains.
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