This is a developing story and will have multiple updates throughout the day.
The National Hurricane Center is forecasting that a Category 2 hurricane will hit a battered Florida Gulf Coast midweek, a tripling of misery for a region that has already suffered two hurricane landfalls this season.
An advisory issued at 11 a.m. Saturday on newly formed Tropical Depression 14 says the tropical cyclone is 210 miles north-northeast of Veracruz, Mexico, in the simmering southwestern Gulf of Mexico and moving north-northeast at a dawdling 3 mph. Its maximum sustained wind speeds were 35 mph.
Rapid strengthening is expected as the system moves across the central and eastern part of the Gulf with a hurricane forming Monday or Tuesday before more deepening will take it to a Category 2 storm with estimated 110 mph winds ahead of a possible Wednesday landfall.
The next name on the 2024 hurricane list is Milton.
While NHC’s intensity forecast tops out at a Category 2, some models are more bullish on the storm’s future ferocity.
“It’s worth noting that stronger scenarios are possible, especially if the system takes a more northerly track,” said Michael Lowry, a meteorologist with South Florida ABC-TV affiliate Channel10 in a special briefing Saturday.
Forecast track models are in consistent agreement for now that the storm will make landfall somewhere between Naples and Cedar Key with the forecast cone issued Saturday by the NHC swallowing the entire Florida peninsula.
For Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties, the National Weather Service continues to forecast the potential for heavy rainfall of up to 10 to 12 inches through Oct. 12, but cautions that rainfall totals will fluctuate as the soon-to-be Milton gets closer.
The rainfall is expected to begin Sunday and last throughout the week.
The Gulf Coast has already faced two hurricanes this season. Hurricane Debby made landfall Aug. 5 near Steinhatchee as a Category 1 storm.
Devastating Hurricane Helene crashed into the coast near Perry in the Big Bend region on Sept. 26 as a Category 4 hurricane with 140-mph sustained winds and a raging storm surge that overran the length of Florida’s west coast from 1 to 3 feet in the Keys to an estimated 15 to 20 feet in portions of the Big Bend region.
Kimberly Miller is a journalist for The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA Today Network of Florida. She covers real estate, weather, and the environment. Subscribe to The Dirt for a weekly real estate roundup. If you have news tips, please send them to kmiller@pbpost.com. Help support our local journalism; subscribe today.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: National Hurricane Center forecasts Cat 2 hurricane to hit Gulf Coast
