Hurricane Ian made landfall in western Cuba early Tuesday as a Category 3 storm, bringing “significant wind and storm surge impacts” as it strengthened on its way to Florida , forecasters said.
Residents of coastal communities around the Tampa Bay region have been ordered to evacuate and urged to travel even short distances to avoid the worst of the storm.
Ian is expected to move into the Gulf of Mexico by late morning, passing through west of the Florida Keys later Tuesday and toward the west coast of Florida as a major hurricane Wednesday night, the National Hurricane Center said in its most recent advisory.
The storm intensified overnight into a Category 3 hurricane, with maximum winds estimated at more than 115 miles per hour at its core before making landfall near La Coloma in Pinar del Rio province from Cuba The National Hurricane Center warned that life-threatening storm surges, hurricane-force winds, flash flooding and mudslides were expected in western Cuba overnight and into Tuesday, and asked residents to move quickly to evacuate and protect property.
By 8 a.m. Tuesday, Ian had gained even more strength, with maximum sustained winds of 125 mph as it moved north at 12 mph, about 130 miles southwest of Dry Tortugas National Park, near the Florida Keys
The challenge of pinpointing Ian’s path meant difficult decisions for residents about whether to evacuate or stay put, according to researchers who study hurricanes and evacuations.
“The public demands accuracy in hurricane forecasts that we can give them for most storms,” said Jason Senkbeil, a professor in the University of Alabama’s geography department. But with Ian, he said, “it’s frustrating.”
On Monday, when jurisdictions in the Tampa Bay region began issuing evacuation orders, for example, it was clear that Ian would eventually arrive as a strong storm, but plausible variations in its predicted path could mean the difference between the winds relatively short hurricane-force winds and “a big rain and wave event,” Senkbeil said.
“I don’t know if people can grasp those differences,” he said.
Jennifer Collins, a professor of geosciences at the University of South Florida who lives in the Tampa area, said her neighbors have asked her questions about storm threats and whether to evacuate. Even though they were not in an evacuation zone, there are still risks that may be too great for some to stay behind, he explained.
“They still focus on the center of the cone and not on the edges of the cone,” Collins said. “You can get significant impacts off the cone. It’s a little frustrating to me that they do that. At some stages they’ve been saying, ‘Oh, we’re OK,’ and I said, ‘I don’t know why you think we’re OK; no they were. We should be ready.”
Melissa Thomas, 31, was studying meteorology at Florida State University when Hurricane Michael hit in 2018. Her parents chose to stay at home, and as she watched the storm approach, “I thought : ‘I’m watching my parents die on the radar. ?’ I will never forget that thought.”
Thomas worked as an on-camera meteorologist before deciding to become a teacher, now at a high school in Bay County. He now provides forecasts via social media, and as Ian elaborated this week, he noticed anxiety rising among some Panhandle residents who lived through that previous storm and the fear of enduring another one.
“The simple fact that we’re even in the conversation about possible landings is really raising people’s awareness of their own stress of being in the cone of uncertainty,” Thomas said.
Even if Ian makes landfall elsewhere, he added, “it’s still very scary even to be talked about on the periphery of a storm like this.”
Ian is threatening to bring severe flooding and damaging winds to Florida’s Gulf Coast, appearing headed for landfall between Naples and the Big Bend area of the West Coast between Wednesday and Thursday. It is forecast to become a Category 4 storm with winds of 140 mph by Tuesday afternoon, making it the strongest September hurricane in the Gulf since Rita in 2005. Then, it is expected the storm weakened slightly as it approached Florida, making landfall as a Category 3 with maximum sustained winds of 125 miles per hour.
Hurricane warnings were issued for the Tampa Bay region Monday evening, along with storm surge warnings, and on Tuesday the National Hurricane Center extended it as far south as Bonita Springs, south of Fort Myers and Cape Coral. That’s because weather forecast models increasingly suggest Ian will make landfall to the south of previous predictions, near or even just south of Tampa Bay.
The hurricane’s biggest threat may be storm surge — a surge of ocean water over normally dry land caused by low atmospheric pressure and winds. The National Hurricane Center predicts that Ian could send up to 5 to 10 feet of storm surge along the Florida coast, a danger that can be deadly and destructive. The gentle slope of the ocean floor along the Florida coast means that even a minor hurricane or tropical storm can cause severe coastal flooding.
The storm’s expected slow movement as it approaches Florida also likely means flooding rains, with 10 to 20 inches or more possible in some areas.
Ian arrives as part of a surge in late-season tropical activity in the Atlantic basin where, for the first time in 25 years, no named tropical cyclones formed during August. While forecasters had been watching as many as five tropical systems in recent days, including a nascent Ian, the storm is now one of two under watch. The other, a few hundred miles west of the Cape Verde Islands, could soon become Tropical Storm Julia.
Brittany Shammas, Annabelle Timsit and Jason Samenow contributed to this report.