Powerful wind gusts hammer Florida towns even without rain during Milton

AccuWeather

Due to what forecasters call a 'sting jet,' storm chasers saw howling winds in Punta Gorda after Hurricane Milton's landfall, leading to widespread power outages.

Transcript

00:00A fierce 102 mile-per-hour wind gust in Sarasota right now, Bernard.

00:03And strong winds on the southern side and with that, our team coverage continues right

00:08now with storm chaser Mike Scantlin live in Punta Corda on the southern side of Milton

00:14where the winds have really picked up here in the last hour and Mike, the last time we

00:20talked to you, the storm surge was increasing and so were the winds and it looks as though

00:24that continues.

00:29You're absolutely right.

00:30So, my last live shot, I was standing in the grass here in what was a field, there's like

00:34an empty lot here covered in grass, there's about three feet of water where I was standing

00:39earlier and we're in the hotel parking lot now, taking wind gusts over 90, dry wind gusts

00:46though, you'll notice I am bone dry right now, a dry half of the hurricane, still very

00:52potent, a lot less wind gusts without the precept of bringing the wind down to the surface

00:57but, you know, the gusts are sporadic but they are potent, we've had probably three

01:01or four over 90, we did have some power flashes here just to our south that knocked out power

01:06to the hotel and if Aaron can zoom in back here, across downtown Punta Corda, they have

01:12also lost power now but multiple feet of water moving through downtown Punta Corda right

01:18now, still transformers exploding in every direction here with those sporadic wind gusts

01:25here so, they are sporadic but they are potent and the surge is moving any quicker than it

01:31was since the last time we talked, I wouldn't be surprised if we had seven feet of surge

01:35at this point in time from the beginning of the storm.

01:39And Mike, I know you're looking at the camera but behind you, we are seeing lots of light

01:45flashes, there is no lightning right now anywhere as you mentioned, we were just looking at

01:50the radar that there is not much in the rain so those have to be power flashes, transformers

01:58blowing right now because of that wind.

02:00Absolutely, and I'm probably seeing well over 100 power flashes with this, that's one of

02:08the things that we use when the storm, whenever it's night time, we track the wind gusts coming,

02:14you can actually see them coming, the one that took out our power, we saw it coming

02:17with a sequence of power flashes moving in our direction and I can hear a big gust coming

02:23right now and I'm probably going to see all the power flashes behind me but the surge

02:28is still coming in and I think we probably saw the storm before shooting that storm.

02:34We're going to wrap you right now, we want you to be safe because there's powerful winds

02:39coming in, we're going to check back with you, get yourself in a safe spot as those

02:43winds are going to continue to howl.

02:46Alright, joining us right now with the latest, we have AccuWeather hurricane expert Alex

02:52Da Silva and Alex, you just saw the report of Mike Scatlin which is again, he is located

02:59in Punta Gorda, let's take a look at the radar, explain what's going on here with the winds,

03:05not much rain but a lot of strong winds, Alex.

03:09Yeah, we might be seeing what's called a sting jet on the southern side of the eyewall here

03:15where the winds can come down in kind of the drier portion of the eyewall there and

03:20so we're seeing some accelerating winds coming down across the southern area of that eyewall

03:25there so don't let the fact that there's no rain there fool you, there's going to be very,

03:29very, very strong winds on the side of this eyewall I think due to this sting jet what

03:34we call coming in to Florida there.

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