Hurricane Milton, after wowing meteorologists by rapidly intensifying from a tropical storm to a Category 5 hurricane in about a day, unleashed a potent mix of severe weather hazards across Florida on Wednesday into early Thursday.

Some were expected, such as violent winds that left a trail of damage from coast to coast. Some weren’t as bad as feared, such as a storm surge that largely spared the city of Tampa. And some were surprising, such as a deadly tornado outbreak that could verify as one for the record books.

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Tornadoes arrived early and often

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Hurricanes often spawn tornadoes as their spiral bands of showers and thunderstorms come ashore. Milton, however, shocked Florida on Wednesday when it produced an earlier-than-expected onslaught of unusually strong and long-lived tornadoes that flipped tractor-trailers, ripped off roofs and downed trees across a large swath of central and southern Florida. At least four people were killed as a result of tornadoes in St. Lucie County on the state’s central Atlantic coast.

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While forecasters warned that tornadoes would be possible with Milton, the severity of the tornado outbreak and its arrival hours before Milton’s eye made landfall took many people by surprise. The National Weather Service issued 126 tornado warnings on Wednesday — at one point, there were 18 simultaneous tornado warnings in effect across the state — and there were 48 reports of tornadoes on the ground. Some may have traveled more than five miles; the average tornado goes for about 3.5 miles.

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Hurricane Milton

Follow our live updates as Hurricane Milton made landfall along Florida’s west-central coast, bringing heavy rain and deadly tornadoes that left at least six dead. See the damage from Milton as its destruction hit homes, landmarks like Tropicana Field and more.

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Once the number of tornado touchdowns is confirmed by the Weather Service, this tornado outbreak could rank as one of Florida’s worst on record, while Milton could go down as one of the most prolific tornado-producing hurricanes. Until now, the most tornadoes to have touched down in the state on a single day was 22.

Landfalling hurricanes contain several ingredients conducive to producing tornadoes, including heat, moisture and winds that change speed and direction with altitude. As Milton’s outer bands moved over Florida, they encountered strong winds about 3 to 5 miles above the ground, according to Ohio State University atmospheric scientist Jana Houser. These winds helped to weaken the storm to a Category 3 before landfall, but they also helped form the rotating storms that turned into tornadoes.

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The intensity of the tornado outbreak was enhanced by Milton’s spiral bands moving over Florida during the time of peak heating of the day and record-warm ocean waters because of a marine heat wave, said Kristopher Bedka, severe storm researcher at NASA’s Langley Research Center. “The combination of warm air near the ground and especially high moisture due to the still very warm Atlantic waters made the atmosphere very unstable and provided fuel for intense thunderstorm development,” he said.

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A 1,000-year rainstorm in St. Petersburg

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First the tornado outbreak, then came the rain. Milton barreled through Florida relatively fast, but it still managed to drop at least 6 to 12 inches of rain in its path. The heaviest rain fell across a relatively narrow band of the state that stretched southwest to northeast from round Tampa, through Orlando and toward Daytona Beach. Flooding prompted numerous water rescues and forced the evacuation of a hospital near St. Petersburg,

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The Weather Service issued a flash flood emergency, its most severe flood alert, for the Tampa Bay area and locations just to the east. That included St. Petersburg, which recorded the highest total at 18.87 inches of rain. In three hours, more than 9 inches fell over the city — an event that has only a 0.1 percent chance of happening in a given year (called a 1-in-1,000-year rain event). Tampa received 11.23 inches of rain Wednesday, almost 1 inch more than the city has ever seen during all of October, and four to six times the amount of rain in a typical October.

The same marine heat wave that may have helped fuel Milton’s prolific production of tornadoes also played a role, experts say, in the intense rainfall. Unusually warm ocean waters can lead to more evaporation of water into the air, making storms stronger and capable of generating heavier rainfall.

Milton followed less than two weeks after Hurricane Helene dumped up to 30 inches of rain in North Carolina. Scientists point to human-caused climate change, which has warmed both the land and oceans, as a factor in intensifying hurricane rainfall because warmer air holds more moisture.

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Water pours out of Tampa Bay rather than surging in

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Forecasters feared that a storm surge — the rise in ocean water above normally dry land — of up to 15 feet would devastate Tampa with catastrophic flooding if the storm made landfall in Tampa Bay or just to the north. That’s because in that scenario, counterclockwise flow around the storm’s low-pressure center would generate onshore winds (from west to east) on the southern side of the storm, pushing a wall of ocean water into the bay and onto the shoreline.

However, because Milton came ashore south of Tampa, offshore winds (from east to west) on the northern side of the storm ended up sucking water out of Tampa Bay and away from the densely populated coastline, resulting in a “reverse surge” in which water levels in the bay actually dropped well below normal for a time.

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While Tampa was spared a worst-case scenario, coastal areas to the south of the storm’s center were inundated with water, including Sarasota, Venice and Fort Myers and Naples. While exact measurements are available, the surge may have reached at least 8 to 10 feet in Sarasota and Venice with reports of 3 to 6 feet in the zone from Charlotte Harbor to Naples, which includes Fort Myers. The water level of 5.25 feet reported at Fort Myers ranks as the city’s second highest, trailing only the high-water mark of 7.26 feet during Hurricane Ian in 2022.

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Extreme winds from coast to coast, accentuated by ‘sting jet'-like feature

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Milton blitzed central Florida with fierce wind gusts of at least 80 mph along a path that stretched across the state from just south of Sarasota on the west coast to Daytona Beach on the east coast. Extreme gusts, eclipsing 100 mph around Tampa and Sarasota, ripped the roof off Tropical Field and toppled a crane into the Tampa Bay Times building. Downed trees across the state helped to cut power to more than 3 million customers.

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Some of the highest gusts reported were 105 mph near the entrance of Tampa Bay in the Gulf of Mexico, 102 mph at Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport, 101 mph at Albert Whitted Airport in St. Petersburg, 98 mph at Cape Canaveral and 87 mph at Daytona Beach International Airport.

One aspect that meteorologists say was unusual was that the strongest winds occurred to the west and northwest of the eye. Hurricane winds are typically strongest on the east side where they are enhanced by the storm’s forward motion. In the case of Milton, however, an intrusion of cooler, drier air promoted sinking air on the west and northwest side that likely descended quickly and accelerated at the surface, according to Levi Cowan, a forecaster at the U.S. Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center.

Some meteorologists described this backside wind maximum as a “sting-jet” feature, which is a small area of intense winds that is more typically associated with large, powerful weather systems that aren’t tropical in nature. “I don’t think it’s inappropriate to call it a sting-like jet, or perhaps a TC’s [tropical cyclone’s] version of one,” said David Ryglicki, hurricane expert for MyRadar.

Kaitlyn Jesmonth, an atmospheric science researcher at the University of Illinois, said more research is needed to better understand why the winds were so strong but that the feature shared “some similarities to a sting jet.”

Jason Samenow, Ian Livingston, Matthew Cappucci, Laris Karklis, Tim Meko and Dylan Moriarty contributed to this report.

Hurricane Milton

Milton, an extremely dangerous Category 3 hurricane, made landfall along Florida’s west coast Wednesday night. See its path with our storm tracker, view the widespread damages and watch live-stream feeds. Here are four key details about Hurricane Milton that shocked meteorologists.

The latest: How bad was Hurricane Milton? Before landfall, destructive tornadoes touched down across Florida in what could be the most powerful hurricane to hit the Tampa Bay area in more than a century. Milton could seriously affect some parts of Florida that are still recovering from Hurricane Helene’s aftermath.

Milton’s impact: Some Florida residents pondered evacuation ahead of Milton’s landfall, but many refused to leave before Hurricane Helene. FEMA has enough relief funding for Hurricane Milton, but what’s next is less certain.