Predicting the precise landfall location of a hurricane can be a difficult endeavor, even hours before landfall happens. Such is the case with Milton.
Forecasters with the National Hurricane Center have been fairly consistent over the past few days in predicting that Milton’s landfall will occur somewhere on a 60-mile stretch of Florida’s Gulf Coast from Tampa Bay to Sarasota.
But even early Wednesday afternoon, they noted that the exact landfall position was still “not possible to predict,” and they cautioned residents not to fixate on the exact location, as the storm’s dangers will be widespread.
Hurricanes are steered by weather patterns occurring at altitudes where planes fly. A hurricane wants to transport its heat energy north and is looking for the weakest path it can take. The forecasters are also looking for this path.
They have been expecting the hurricane to turn more toward the coast. When a storm doesn’t quite turn when forecasters expect, it can change the precise landfall location. But late Wednesday afternoon, they said they expected the storm to begin that turn to the east soon, taking the center near or just south of Tampa Bay later this evening.
Hurricanes can show unpredictable and weird behaviors, like a subtle movement to one side, commonly called a “wobble” by forecasters. Often a wobble does not have much effect on a storm unless, as with Milton, a storm is moving diagonally along the coast. So, any jog to the right could make it move inland earlier and farther south, and any left jog could lead to a landfall later and farther north.
One wobble could dramatically change the impacts of conditions like storm surge.
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