Hurricane Milton: Morning After
It landed as Cat2!
Below is the P.P.S. from my yesterday’s post that irked many a reader:
Hurricane Milton: Make Your Bets
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?
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 gusts 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)
as this YouTube video confirms, it was, actually, Cat2 or even Cat1 at landfall:
“Catastrophe Bonds Dodge Worst-Case Scenario After Milton” (Bloomberg):
Estimates that had indicated the cat bonds would lose as much as 15% have now been replaced by calculations showing investors are more likely to see a hit in the single digits.
Icosa said it’s currently expecting losses in its portfolios won’t exceed low single digits. If that scenario pans out — assuming there are no further hits to the portfolio and with current cat bond yields above 10% — Icosa reckons the cat bond market could still deliver a “significantly positive return” for 2024.
And if industrywide losses settle at the lower end of the expected range, it’s even possible that there’ll be no losses at all, Icosa said. “However, since the fund is valued based on bid prices, we expect short-term markdowns, which are likely to normalize in the coming weeks.”
“‘Hysteria’: Hurricane Milton overblown in US media” (Sky News Australia, 2024.10.14):
“No one should downplay the tragedy … but it was not even close to being one of the worst in US history.”
And there you have it.
I also noted the ominpresent reports of "120 mph winds." However, Jim of the Weather Channel confirmed the highest "gust" that had been reported was 97 mph. The wind graphs ranged from 25 to 54 mph. A friend on Facebook has a place not far from the landing site and said there was no damage in his neighborhood, confirmed by photos.
I used to live on Longboat Key, Milton's landfall. The local paper reported "Longboat Key Town Manager Howard Tipton and Fire Rescue Chief Paul Dezzi addressed the public with another Facebook Live video via the Sarasota County Government Facebook page:
“It was a long night,” Tipton said. The highest winds were estimated to be around 110 mph, but Hurricane Milton brought very little storm surge to the island, according to Tipton. The town’s first-in team arrived on the island this morning and saw little damage to the island, including the town’s infrastructure."
In another report: "Wind peaked at Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport at 9:36 p.m. at 69 mph with 102 mph gusts. Rain totaled 7.6 inches."
In short, not the apocalypse...