Hurricane Milton Rapidly Intensifies into Category 5 Hurricane, Becoming the Gulf's Strongest Late-Season Storm on Record

Hurricane Milton, the ninth hurricane of the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season, rapidly intensified into a Category 5 storm in the Gulf of Mexico on Monday, October 7, 2024. The storm exploded in strength and intensity at near record pace becoming one of the most intense hurricanes on record in the Atlantic basin. This explosive strengthening was fueled in part by record to near-record warmth across the Gulf of Mexico. The warmer the ocean is, the more fuel there is for hurricanes to intensify, provided other atmospheric conditions (like wind shear) are also favorable.

If you blinked over the weekend, you may have missed the initial formation of what is now Hurricane Milton. Milton formed as a tropical depression over the southwestern Gulf of Mexico on Saturday, October 5, 2024. Just a couple hours after its formation the National Hurricane Center (NHC) deemed it a tropical storm. By Sunday afternoon, just 24-hours after becoming a named storm, Milton had rapidly intensified into a Category 1 hurricane. Rapid intensification is defined as a 35 mph increase in wind speed in 24 hours.

From 1:00 p.m. CDT on Sunday to 1:00 p.m. CDT on Monday (a 24-hour period), Milton increased an additional 95 mph, more than doubling the requirement for rapid intensification. Based on these early numbers, this explosive amount of rapid intensification is only eclipsed by Wilma 2005 and Felix 2007 according to NHC records. Maximum sustained winds peaked at 180 mph on Monday afternoon (a strong Category 5) and the hurricane’s pressure bottomed out at 897 mb. Pressure is another way to measure the strength of a hurricane, outside of wind speed. Typically, the lower the pressure, the stronger the hurricane.

Read more at: NOAA

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