Storm names Debby, Helene, Milton won’t be soon forgotten
While it seems to be odd to be talking about tropical systems during a week where “Florida winter” has brought chilly weather, the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season came to a merciful close Saturday. It kept Osceola County residents, leaders and emergency managers on their toes.
The official statistics show the season, predicted to be “hyperactive” by tropical weather experts, produced 18 named storms, including 11 hurricanes and five major (Category 3-5) storms.
For Floridians, especially those on Florida’s Gulf Coast, three hurricanes—Debby, Helene and Milton, the last two coming nearly back-to-back— were particularly memorable.
While Debby and Helene, passed far enough to the west to make us get a storm plan ready, Milton gave Osceola County a reason to put plans into action.
Following a path set in early August by Debby, Helene came ashore in Taylor County on Sept. 26 with 140 mph sustained winds, making it the third hurricane to hit the Big Bend region in 13 months. More than $1.99 billion in estimated insured losses had been reported in Florida from Helene.
Those storms brought, at most, intermittent driving rain and tropical storm wind gusts in the 40 mph range to Osceola County. But they were just good practice for prepping for Milton, a one-time Category 5 monster that made a historically-odd trek eastward across the Gulf of Mexico, crossed Osceola County in the overnight hours of Oct. 10. It brought heavy rains, and wind gusts that reached hurricane strength in isolated areas. Those winds caused some roof damage, destroyed some overhead road signs and downed or uprooted some trees onto streets or power lines.
What those storms didn’t cause was panic, or a state of unpreparedness.
“We were expecting 8-10 inches of rain and the potential for Category 2 winds here up to 100 mph,” Osceola Emergency Management Director Bill Litton said. “Had the storm center gone closer to I-4, we would have gotten that. We got 3-5 inches from Milton, which we had capacity for, so we were fortunate to be able to be back up and running the next day.”
He said the preparedness measures aren’t as much for longtime residents used to tropical trouble as new residents learning the drill.
“The last four years, I’ve seen that level of awareness from our new residents, about how to respond pre- and post-storm, so that’s been good.”
Hurricane-disaster awareness has taken hold since Hurricane Ian put many parts of Osceola County under water in 2022 and resulted in 150 deaths in Florida.
A study by the nonprofit climate-research group Climate Central determined the wind speeds of the 11 Atlantic hurricanes this year were 9- to 28-mph stronger due to warmed waters.
Record-warm ocean waters have intensified storm strengths over the past few years—a pattern that’s causing major concern for meteorologists, and for Litton. The county conducted an annual Flood Alert Warning System test on Wednesday, and Litton said input from that would go into Emergency Management’s hurricane planning exercise in May for the 2025 season—yes, it’s already on the radar.
The 2024 hurricane season was forecast to be even more severe than it was. Colorado State University’s Department of Atmospheric Science projected 23 named storms and 11 hurricanes. But the anticipated La Niña conditions, which create hurricane-favorable wind shear, did not ramp up as expected, but will be in place for the winter. Usually that means drier weather in the South, but that’s not all great news, Litton said.
“With drier weather, we have to worry about drought, and brush fires,” he said, noting there will be outreach events ahead of any during Severe Weather Awareness Week Feb. 3-7.
Information from the News Service of Florida is included in this story.
