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Tampa weather: Lingering impact of Hurricane Milton
FOX 13 News Meteorologist Dave Osterberg says winds will settle down on Thursday.
TAMPA, Fla. - Hurricane Milton is beginning to move away from Florida after making landfall on Siesta Key as a major hurricane on Wednesday night, with hurricane and tropical storm warnings discontinued for Florida's west coast on Thursday morning.
As of 5 a.m., Milton had maximum sustained winds of 85 miles per hour.
Milton reached the west-central coast of Florida at around 8:30 p.m. Wednesday. When it made landfall, the hurricane had maximum sustained winds of 120 miles per hour.
According to FOX 13 News Meteorologist Valerie Mills, the most tornado warnings ever issued in a single day in Florida was on Wednesday.
Milton was last reported moving east-northeast at 18 miles per hour. It's continuing to move east-northeast and is forecast to remain a Category 1 storm as it pushes off the east side of the state.
Hurricane Milton winds
Official readings show wind gusts topped 100 miles an hour in several spots as Milton hit the Gulf coast.
Hurricane-force winds extended outward up to 35 miles from the center of Milton and tropical-storm-force winds extended outward up to 205 miles as the storm moved through Florida.
Hurricane force wind gusts were felt across portions of the Tampa Bay area into early Thursday, with tropical storm force winds extending across a large stretch of the state.
READ: Florida Power Outages: Hurricane Milton knocks out power to millions
According to FOX 13 News Chief Meteorologist Paul Dellegatto, winds will diminish on Thursday.
Rainfall totals
Parts of the Tampa Bay area saw 15 inches of rain in a 24-hour period, leading to severe flooding in many places. The heaviest rainfall occurred north of Milton's eye.
Storm surge
The worst storm surge was expected to be catastrophic, ranging from Milton's eye to the south about 20–30 miles. Official totals are expected sometime Thursday.
Tornado warnings
Milton produced 125 tornado warnings across central and southern portions of Florida, with at least 27 confirmed tornadoes.
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