All right, so we're diving into Hurricane Milton today.
Got a whole stack of articles here,
and let me tell you, this one, this one was something else.
No kidding.
Yeah, everyone gets ready for the wind, right?
The surge.
Yeah.
But Milton, Milton threw everyone a few curve balls.
Curve balls is an understatement.
I mean, seriously, tornadoes before the hurricane even hit.
Rainfall amounts that sound like they're made up.
And Tampa Bay.
Did the ocean just take a vacation or something?
It really makes you kind of step back and go,
wait, what do we really know about hurricanes anyway?
Right.
So let's break this down a bit.
For those of us who weren't glued to the Weather Channel 24-7,
what was the biggest surprise with Milton?
I think, honestly.
The tornadoes were the first sign that this one,
this one was different.
I mean, we know hurricanes can spawn tornadoes,
but usually it's as they come ashore, right?
Milton's like, no, let's get the party started early.
We're talking 126 tornado warnings.
Hold on, 126.
That's more than some states see in a decade.
What on earth caused that?
It was, well, they call it a perfect storm
of atmospheric conditions.
And I mean that literally.
Picture a figure skater, right?
Spinning and they pull their arms in, they spin faster.
Same idea with the hurricane's rotation.
Strong jet stream ripping across the top of Hurricane Milton
made it spin faster and boom,
super powered rotating thunderstorms.
So the jet stream was like the extra oomph
that turned these thunderstorms into tornadoes.
You got it.
And not just any tornadoes either.
Some of these were on the ground for miles,
tearing things up long before the hurricane
even made landfall.
And a lot of that intensity.
You can think the marine heat wave
that was brewing in the Gulf.
Ah, okay, so that's where the marine heat wave comes in.
I've heard that term, but what exactly does it do?
Think of it like this.
The marine heat wave,
it's like giving the hurricane a super powered energy drink.
It makes the ocean way warmer than usual.
And warmer water means more evaporation,
more moisture in the air.
And that my friend is like pouring gasoline on a fire
when it comes to hurricane power.
Wow, so this heat wave just threw fuel on the fire, huh?
Okay, that explains the tornadoes.
But what about all that crazy rain in St. Petersburg?
Over a foot and a half in some places?
That's more rain than some places see in a year, right?
No, you're telling me it was off the charts.
Meteorologists, they call it a one in 1,000 year event.
Like you're more likely to win the lottery
than see that much rain in such a short time.
Okay, but Tampa Bay though,
this is the part that just blows my mind.
Everyone, and I mean everyone,
is braced for this massive like wall of water.
And then poof, it's gone.
It's like someone hit rewind on the ocean.
What happened there?
All right, so that right there,
that's what we call the reverse surge phenomenon.
Sounds like something out of a movie, right?
Yeah.
But it's all, well, it's physics really.
It's all about the way those hurricane winds rotate.
See, hurricanes are like these massive spinning tops
and the wind goes counterclockwise around the center,
what we call the eye.
Okay, makes sense.
So how does that affect the surge?
It's all about which way that wind is blowing
relative to the coast.
If you're north of the eye,
those winds are actually blowing off shore out to sea.
And guess what?
Hurricane Milton made landfall just south of Tampa Bay.
Wait, hold on.
So are you saying that the hurricane was so strong
it sucked the water out of the bay?
That just sounds backwards.
Exactly, it's like a giant vacuum cleaner,
just sucking that water right out.
And that's exactly what happened with Milton.
Just a few miles north though,
if it hit just a bit north,
we'd be looking at a completely different story,
probably a much worse one for Tampa Bay.
So a few miles is all that stood between Tampa
and a major disaster.
That's both, I don't know, amazing and terrifying
all at once.
Shows you just how much a little change
in a hurricane's path can really mean, huh?
Absolutely.
It's a good reminder why those storm surge warnings
they're not to be messed with.
Even if you're not right in the bull's eye,
you can still get some seriously strange
and dangerous effects.
Right, definitely something to remember.
You mentioned that the reverse surge,
it's not like totally unheard of.
Were there other hurricanes
where this kind of thing happened?
Oh yeah, for sure.
It's happened before and it'll happen again.
Hurricane Irma back in 2017,
that one caused a reverse surge in Tampa Bay too.
Not quite as dramatic as Milton,
but still, these reverse surges,
they just go to show you how hurricanes,
they're complex and some,
well, sometimes they just do the unexpected.
Seems like the more we learn about them,
the more we realize how little we actually know.
Speaking of which, two hurricanes in two weeks,
Helene and then Milton, that can't be normal, can it?
Two hurricanes, boom, boom, right at us.
Makes you wonder if this is the new normal now.
Yeah, it's definitely got people talking to,
I asked unusual, two hurricanes so close together,
but not completely unheard of
if you look back at hurricane history.
2004, Florida got hit by four hurricanes,
one after the other.
Charlie, Francis, Ivan, then Gene.
And there were similar patterns back in the 40s and 50s too.
So not totally unprecedented,
but still makes you think, right?
Especially with all the talk about
climate change messing with hurricanes.
Yeah, and that's the big question, isn't it?
I mean, can we say for sure that Hurricane Helene
and then Milton, both hitting Florida like this,
is because of climate change?
Not definitively, no,
but the science is pretty clear on this.
Warmer oceans supercharge hurricanes.
It's like giving them an extra shot of espresso.
More moisture in the air too,
means you're gonna get those heavier downpour,
stronger winds, and yeah,
those weird side effects like what we saw with Milton,
those could become more common too.
So basically, we're making hurricanes
stronger and less predictable.
Great, just what we need, right?
But seriously, if all this,
these crazy rainfall amounts, those reverse surges,
if this is the new normal, what do we even deal?
We gotta adapt, that's for sure.
The old ways of thinking about hurricanes
might not cut it anymore.
We need to be ready for anything.
More rain than we're used to,
tornadoes popping up further inland
and those weird surge events,
even if you think you're far enough away from the coast.
It's like Hurricane Milton was a crash course,
in all the ways a hurricane can surprise you.
This deep dive, it wasn't just about one storm, was it?
It feels like we've been looking
at the bigger picture here, like the climate's changing
and hurricanes are changing right along with it.
So to everyone listening, pay attention.
Hurricane Milton was a wake-up call.
Don't just watch that cone of uncertainty.
Be ready for anything.
We need to stay informed, be prepared for the unexpected
and maybe, just maybe, rethink how we get ready
for hurricane season from now on.