Before Hurricane Milton made landfall, at Siesta Key, Florida, its outer bands had produced almost forty supercell tornados across southern portions of the State. Indeed, damage from those storms might exceed that produced by the hurricane core itself.
As Milton reached the Gulf Coast, it was interacting with a front that dipped across Northern Florida, producing torrential rain on the north side of the hurricane (including the Tampa-St. Petersburg area). The most intense winds of the eye-wall remained south of that Metro Area and the strongest storm surge hit the coastline south of Sarasota.
News of damage on Longboat Key may take a while to emerge but our primary risk may have come from surge off Sarasota Bay as well as the high winds of the eye-wall. Overnight, Hurricane Milton has moved northeastward along the front and across the Florida peninsula, unleashing heavy rain and destructive winds before heading into the Atlantic.
