Hurricane Ian is barreling toward Florida’s west coast. The Category 3 storm is about 426 km south of Sarasota, as of writing. It’s projected to strengthen into a Category 4 hurricane and to move north and northeast, making landfall on Florida’s west coast just south of Tampa on Wednesday evening, according to NOAA’s latest public advisory.
“Ian is forecast to approach the west coast of Florida as an extremely dangerous major hurricane,” the agency wrote.
Ian has already sown destruction across western Cuba, as the storm crossed the island earlier today. The country is experiencing widespread flooding and power outages, according to reporting from The New York Times. The storm swept through Cuba with sustained winds of 201 km/h and is expected to approach Florida with even stronger winds of up to 140 mph, according to a report from the Associated Press.
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Wind aside, the other major danger is flooding. In some coastal areas of the state, NOAA projects the storm surge could reach 3.66 m, including in the town of Longboat Key, which is situated on a narrow barrier island outside St. Petersburg. Elsewhere along the coast, storm surges are forecast to range from 1 to 9 feet.
Heavy rainfall will likely bring inland and urban flooding, flash floods, and sustained river flooding. Isolated patches of precipitation in Central West Florida could drop 0.61 m of water, according to NOAA. On top of everything else, a large area of the sunshine state is now under a tornado watch.
In response to the incoming storm, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis announced that an estimated 2.5 million people have been ordered to evacuate in the state, he said during a Tuesday press conference. “When you have 5 to 10 feet of storm surge, that is not something you want to be a part of,” DeSantis said, “and Mother Nature is a very fearsome adversary.”
Florida is not the only state expected to be impacted by the storm. Ian is also likely to bring flooding to southern Georgia and coastal South Carolina, NOAA said. Accordingly, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp declared a state of emergency that will go into effect beginning at 7 a.m. on Thursday, September 29.
In other news, NOAA is planning to send a drone into the eye of the storm on Wednesday, as part of a “weather reconnaissance” mission. If successful, the plan would be the first time the agency has deployed an aerial drone inside a hurricane, according to the weather and climate news outlet Currently.