Hurricane Milton is expected to strike the Tampa area overnight Wednesday and into Thursday morning with life-threatening storm surge of up to 15 feet, said Austen Flannery, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Tampa office. The region ...

The National Hurricane Center expects Milton will be a Category 3 storm, with wind speeds of at least 111 mph, when it reaches the Tampa Bay area, likely sometime overnight Wednesday.

With reverse storm surge, especially in larger storms, the opposite happens, explained AccuWeather meteorologist Paul Pastelok in 2022, after Ian hit. “It can pull the water out because the wind flow is coming from land to ocean, and it pushes the water,” he said. “The power of the wind is incredible.”