Jeff Berardelli is WFLA’s Chief Meteorologist and Local weather Specialist
TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — Most years we are saying it may occur right here. In 2024, it did. The worst storms have been Helene and Milton. Two storms simply 13 days aside. They have been very totally different hurricanes, devastating totally different elements of Tampa Bay.
Helene organized right into a tropical storm on Sept. 25 and set a course that skirted Florida’s west coast. By the following day, it was a class 4 hurricane simply 100 miles off Pinellas County.
Simply after 11 p.m., it made landfall close to Perry, nonetheless a class 4 with punishing 140 mph winds — the strongest landfall within the Massive Bend since record-keeping started.
Small communities like Cedar Key have been battered with wind and 10 toes of surge. One in 4 properties in Cedar Key have been destroyed.
With Helene’s core up to now offshore, many Tampa Bay residents have been shocked as coastal communities have been inundated by the very best surge in 100 years. As seen within the under picture, a number of toes of water pushed into properties.
Helene ended up being the deadliest hurricane to hit the U.S. since Katrina. Though most of its casualties weren’t in Florida.
Because the storm swept into the Southeastern U.S., it delivered an astonishing quantity of rain to the southern Appalachian Mountains. As much as 30 inches of rain slammed the mountains, triggering landslides that swept into the valleys, swelling rivers, and washing away whole communities.
Then, simply days later, the following risk emerged: Hurricane Milton.
It began with a tropical melancholy on Oct. 5, then a hurricane on Oct. 6, quickly intensifying to class 5 on Oct. 7.
Milton was one of many strongest hurricanes ever recorded within the Atlantic Basin, and though it weakened because it approached Florida, it nonetheless made landfall as a serious class 3.
Milton’s landfall at Siesta Key round 8:30 p.m. on Oct. 9 adopted tense hours of watching each wobble on the Max Defender 8 Wobble Tracker.
A slight jog to the north would have introduced the storm’s intense south-side winds into Tampa Bay, powering a worst-case-scenario surge occasion in contrast to something we have skilled in centuries.
As an alternative, Milton went simply far sufficient south for its winds to push water out of Tampa Bay. However the surge to the south was extreme, reaching 10 toes at Manasota Key.
Milton’s largest influence on Tampa Bay was torrential rain and a chronic flood occasion in Pinellas, Hillsborough, and particularly alongside the Withlacoochee River.
In all, 27 individuals misplaced their lives to Hurricane Milton, all of them, in Florida.
