Dry air, clear skies across North Texas as Hurricane Milton churns in the Gulf
Tuesday morning was beautiful across North Texas with dew point temperatures in the 40s and 50s with clear skies. The dry air made for a great sunrise in Dallas-Fort Worth.
High temperatures on Tuesday will be in the mid-80s which is still nearly five degrees above average for this time of the year but it's closer to the average high temperature of 82 degrees.
Expect a few refreshing cool mornings Wednesday and Thursday with temperatures dropping to the lower 60s to upper 50s and even lower 50s in some spots.
The nice weather continues throughout the week across Dallas-Fort Worth.
The big weather story for the U.S. is Hurricane Milton. As of the 7 a.m. advisory, Milton was still a strong Category 4 hurricane. Milton is in the process of an eyewall replacement cycle. Whenever this occurs, there is some weakening with the wind speeds around the center of circulation but Milton is still a very dangerous storm with winds at 145 mph.
Milton is forecast to strengthen back to a Category 5 hurricane later on Tuesday as it continues moving east and then turning toward the northwest.
On this forecast track, the latest data shows Milton making landfall late Wednesday night into Thursday morning as a strong Category 3 hurricane.
If it takes the perfect center track, it will move onshore near the St. Petersburg and Tampa Bay area, which hasn't seen a direct landfall since 1921. Most of Florida is under a tropical alert of some kind with the hurricane warning in place across central Florida. From the west coast and directly along the path through the east coast, there is a hurricane warning in place.
The storm surge from Milton could get as high as 15' in some areas coupled with the possibility of 5"-12" of rain with some localized areas seeing nearly 18" of rain.
Even if Milton weakens to a Category 3 before landfall, it is still a major hurricane and the storm surge will happen. The water has been being pushed to the western coast of Florida for a few days and that water won't recede back into the Gulf until Milton passes.
The rain that will fall won't be able to drain into the Gulf due to the storm surge so catastrophic flooding is anticipated. The latest GRAF forecast put the center of circulation on-shore around 10:16 p.m. Wednesday night and very close to Tampa Bay.