Hurricane Milton: Make Your Bets

…in the wake of the unprecedented fear porn surge.

As the historic, cataclysmic, monster of a hurricane relentlessly barrels toward the Florida coast, the big question is, what will be its strength at landfall?

I bet it will be Category 1 or, at most, Category 2 hurricane:

Put forward your bets - the Wheel of Fortune spins Thursday night at 2am. A lucky winner will be able to pat him-/herself on the back and enter the history annals as a clairvoyant forevermore. Don’t miss your chance!

P.S. 5PM, NOAA: “ MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE...948 MB...Maximum sustained winds are near 120 mph (195 km/h) with higher gusts. Milton is a category 3 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale. Milton could still be a major hurricane when it reaches the coast of west-central Florida this evening…” We all live in hope, don’t we, NOAA? Approaching Cat2 fast!

P.P.S. 8PM, NOAA: Although the minimum central pressure continued to grow to 954MB, indicating the weakening of the system, miraculously, the winds didn’t slow down and remained at 120mph??? 8:30PM the landfall reported, again the winds didn’t budge remaining at 120mph???

From multiple reporters on the ground and from live reporting on YouTube, by the time the eye of the system travelled over land, the maximum wind gusts were registered at only 100mph, indicating a weaker Cat2 hurricane (see the table above).

To be more precise, here are the locations of St. Petersburg and Bradenton, where only 100mph have been reported, relative to the path of the eye of the hurricane:

"The storm was significant, but thankfully this was not the worst-case scenario," Gov. Ron DeSantis said at a briefing Thursday. He cited the storm weakening before landfall and said the storm surge "as initially reported has not been as significant overall as what was observed for Hurricane Helene." (USA Today, 2024.10.10)

And there you have it.