By Brendan O’Brien
(Reuters) – Hurricane Milton strengthened rapidly in the southern Gulf of Mexico on Monday as it skirted the northern edge of the Yucatan peninsula, home to tourist hotspots and cargo ports, with a strike expected on Florida this week.
The Category-5 hurricane, the strongest on the Saffir-Simpson scale, is seen generating a storm surge that could raise water levels by up to 6 feet (1.8 meters) along the Yucatan’s northern coast, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center.
The area is home to the picturesque colonial-era city of Merida, close to several Maya ruins popular with tourists, and the port of Progreso.
The Miami-based hurricane center said Milton was about 105 miles (169 km) west of the port, moving east at 9 mph (14 kph), and expected to turn northeast by late Tuesday or early Wednesday as it barrels toward Florida’s Gulf coast.
It estimated the hurricane’s maximum sustained winds at 175 mph (282 kph).
Milton had “explosively” intensified, the center noted, similar to other storm systems this hurricane season, which experts argue have been supercharged by warmer ocean temperatures.
Floridians scrambled to prepare for its arrival this week near Tampa, where it may bring blistering winds, life-threatening storm surge and torrential rains to the Gulf Coast for the second time in two weeks.
The hurricane is seen making landfall around Florida’s populous Tampa-St. Petersburg area on Wednesday, before racing across the state and over the Atlantic Ocean, according to the hurricane center.
“It’s going to be powerful, so please take the appropriate precautions,” said Florida Governor Ron DeSantis during a news briefing after issuing a state-of-emergency declaration for 51 counties. “This has the potential to have a lot of damage.”
President Joe Biden also declared an emergency for Florida, allowing federal disaster-relief operations to commence.
Relief efforts are already underway throughout the U.S. Southeast in the wake of Helene, a Category-4 hurricane that killed more than 200 people across six states. It was the deadliest named storm to hit the U.S. mainland since Hurricane Katrina killed nearly 1,400 people in 2005.
With Milton bearing down on Florida, forecasts of a supercharged Atlantic hurricane season were starting to look more on target than they did at the beginning of September, typically the peak time for the formation of named storms.
Milton is the season’s ninth hurricane, and the second Atlantic storm to reach Category 5 this season after Beryl, which in July became the earliest storm to reach that distinction.
The hurricane is expected to bring intense rain Monday and Tuesday over the states of Campeche and Yucatan, Mexico’s weather authority said.
(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Chicago and David Alire Garcia in Mexico City; Editing by Frank McGurty and Rod Nickel)
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