Hurricane Ian strengthened to a Category 3 major hurricane overnight, with projected landfall south of Tampa Bay Wednesday evening into early Thursday morning, according to an early morning update from the National Hurricane Center (NHC).
Hurricane Ian is moving past west Cuba and entering the gulf, where it is expected to strengthen further before reaching Florida’s west coast. Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) said during Tuesday morning’s press conference that the storm had maximum sustained winds of 125 mph with a projected landfall south of Tampa Bay. The most recent NHC update adjusted the maximum sustained winds to 115 mph.
That, however, could change, as the models have continued adjust, showing the storm falling more south and moving further into the Florida peninsula.
“I know we’ve talked about the cone of uncertainty where the landfall was projected. We had it in north Florida just a couple of days ago, that’s consistently been moved more east into the Florida peninsula. Yesterday evening, there were a lot of solutions bringing it right into Tampa Bay. Now you have a lot of solutions bringing the landfall into the Sarasota area,” DeSantis said, noting that it there is still uncertainty on where the eye will make landfall.
Nevertheless, he continued, the impacts will be “far broader than just where the eye of the storm happens to make landfall.”
“In some areas, there will be catastrophic flooding and life threatening storm surge,” he warned, urging residents in vulnerable areas to heed evacuation orders.
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The 5 a.m. update from the NHC warned of “life-threatening storm surge along much of the Florida west coast where a storm surge warning has been issued, with the highest risk from Fort Myers to the Tampa Bay region.”
According to the NHC, hurricane-force winds are expected in west-central Florida beginning Wednesday:
Regardless, the entire state can expect heavy rainfall over the next few days, as most counties are under a tropical storm warning, tropical storm watch, hurricane warning, or hurricane watch: