The National Weather Service meteorologists confirmed Friday that tornadoes spawned by Hurricane Milton had ballooned to at least 41; even then, the final number might be even higher once damage surveys are complete.
For a week and more, meteorologists of three regions of weather service in Florida have been in the field enumerating damage from dozens of mighty tornadoes that stripped off roofs, overthrew mobile homes, tossed boats and cars. One of the tornadoes killed six people in St. Lucie County.
So far, the tornadoes tallied make Milton, which slammed Florida’s Siesta Key on Oct. 9, one of the more prolific tornado-producing storms on record in the modern era, according to NOAA data. Latest numbers are likely to place Milton in 13th place for the most tornadoes produced by any hurricane in the U.S. since 1995. But the numbers aren’t yet final.
The Tampa Bay weather service office continues to investigate reports of damage in its area. If they can confirm one more tornado, Milton would take 12th position in the state’s list for most tornadoes, alongside Hurricane Jeanne in 2004.
The strongest winds of the storm-about its eyewall-peaked at 180 miles per hour about 24 hours before hitting Florida. But the outer bands of storms began pounding South Florida more than 16 hours before landfall.
And a combination of three ingredients would have come together to help establish the ideal circumstance for tornado formation, meteorologists say.
The tornadoes underscore a frequent warning by meteorologists that hurricane impacts can take place far away from the center, said Sammy , a meteorologist with the weather service in Miami. Milton’s center was still nearly 300 miles southwest of Tampa when the first tornado formed near Florida City, about 180 miles southeast of Tampa just after 4 a.m.
The ‘dirty side’ of the storm:
Dry air, instability and wind shear are the three main ingredients for tornadoes, “Rotating supercell thunderstorms in Milton’s northeast quadrant moved as it approached South Florida at an angle where all three were found,” he said.
That’s typically the area where the tornadoes will form, said William Ulrich, warning coordination meteorologist for the weather service office in Melbourne, Florida. “That’s why we call the eastern side ‘the dirty side.’
Milton was coming west to east, so putting Central and South Florida fully into that nasty northeast quadrant. Wind shear, in terms of changes in wind direction and speed with height, is greatest there, Ulrich said, but “just because you’re on the northeastern side, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll see tornadoes.”
All factors played their part this time. It was actually an “unsettling of the atmosphere” occasioned by the sun’s appearance that morning, according to Ulrich, which in the nature of daytime heating contributed to “vigorous” thunderstorms.
Milton was also in contact with a front along a boundary that enhanced the changes in wind direction and speed, giving thunderstorms the tilt necessary to form tornadoes and the ability to rotate.
How many tornadoes was Hurricane Milton associated with?
How many tornadoes did Hurricane Milton produce?
We may never know for sure. Tornadoes occurred over vast swaths of the Everglades and other rural areas of South Florida, so the ability to do surveys is limited, “We can’t access the swamp, it’s hard to go out there.”
The weather service in Miami reported 15 tornadoes-a record for the most in the region in a single day, The previous record was seven. The office also set a record for the most tornado warnings ever issued in a day at 55, he said.
At least two of the tornadoes in the Miami region crossed over into the Melbourne weather service region, where meteorologists have counted a total of 19 tornadoes, including the two from the south, Ulrich said. That’s also a single-day record for the 35-year history of the Melbourne office.