Milton not Keynes

The area in which we live is still recovering from Hurricane Helene, especially the barrier islands, which ‘protect’ the mainland, but of course are not just the first line of defence but beautiful beach communities for thousands of residents and visitors alike.

We were lucky last week here, but very near us there are still streets with debris and ruined personal belongings from rain inundation piled up on the street waiting to be taken away.

Now we have an immediate second storm in quick succession coming this week. Yesterday, after more than a week being disorganized Tropical Storm Milton formed close to Mexico and is expected to quickly intensify to be at hurricane strength by the time it reaches Florida’s west coast Wednesday after moving across the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

Our house in Sarasota is currently in the middle of the cone, which is vast and covers almost all of Florida’s gulf coast. That sounds a little dramatic, because it is and we are currently weighing up whether we evacuate or not. The government may make it mandatory, we’ll have to see.

I spend a lot of my day job studying storms and their impacts, and what is clear is that the track can and will change continuously this week right up until expected landfall on Wednesday. The storm is expected to reach maximum sustained winds of 125 mph (Category 3) before then.

The models are mostly in agreement at the moment, and there really isn’t a scenario where Florida will escape. The rain is expected to start tonight with the ground already saturated.