Monster hurricane Milton threatens an already-battered Florida as one million told to flee

Hurricane Milton has weakened slightly to a still-powerful category-four storm as it threatened Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula on its way to Florida, where more than a million people were ordered to evacuate from its path.

The densely populated west coast of Florida, still reeling from the devastating Hurricane Helene less than two weeks ago, braced for the storm to cross the coast on Wednesday.

The US National Hurricane Center projected the storm was likely to hit near the Tampa Bay metropolitan area, home to more than three million people and where some evacuees rushed to dispose of mounds of debris left behind by Helene on their way out of town.

With maximum sustained winds of 270km/h, Milton eased overnight from the strongest level storm on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale.

Wind speeds could decrease further to 233km/h by the time it approaches Florida, according to the hurricane centre, but still capable of causing catastrophic damage, including power outages expected to last days.

Fed by warm waters in the Gulf of Mexico, Milton became the third-fastest intensifying storm on record in the Atlantic Ocean, the hurricane centre said, as it surged from a tropical storm to a category-five hurricane in less than 24 hours.

Its path from west to east was also unusual, as Gulf hurricanes typically form in the Caribbean Sea and make landfall after travelling west and turning north.

“It is exceedingly rare for a hurricane to form in the western Gulf, track eastward, and make landfall on the western coast of Florida,” said Jonathan Lin, an atmospheric scientist at Cornell University.

“This has big implications since the track of the storm plays a role in determining where the storm surge will be the largest.”

The hurricane centre forecast storm surges up to 4.5 metres along a stretch of coastline north and south of Tampa Bay.

Jamie Rhome, deputy director of the National Hurricane Center, said Milton was expected to grow in size before crossing the coast on Wednesday, putting hundreds of kilometres of coastline within the storm surge danger zone.

Milton was likely to remain a hurricane for its entire journey across the Florida peninsula, Rhome told reporters on Monday.

Early on Tuesday, the eye of the storm was 105km north-northeast of Progreso, a Mexican port near the Yucatan state capital of Merida, and 840km southwest of Tampa, moving east at 15km/h.

While the eye of the storm appeared to have passed to the north of the Yucatan Peninsula, dangerous conditions were still expected to lash the region the early hours of Tuesday.

The area is home to the picturesque colonial-era city of Merida, population 1.2 million, several Maya ruins popular with tourists and the port of Progreso.

In Florida, counties along the western coast ordered people in low-lying areas to take shelter on higher ground.

Pinellas County, which includes St Petersburg, said it ordered the evacuation of more than 500,000 people.

Lee County said 416,000 people lived in its mandatory evacuation zones.

At least six other coastal counties ordered evacuations including Hillsborough County, which includes the city of Tampa.

With one final day for people to evacuate on Tuesday, local officials raised concerns of traffic jams and long lines at petrol stations.

Relief efforts remain ongoing throughout much of the US southeast after Helene, a category-four hurricane crossed the coast in Florida on September 26, killed more than 200 people and caused billions of dollars in damage across six states.