Storm Milton updates LIVE: Follow here as Hurricane Milton crashes into Florida as a Category 3 storm
Hurricane Milton has made landfall as a Category 3 storm, with the Met Office warning it will be "dangerous and destructive" as thousands of UK holidaymakers had flights to Florida cancelled.
Milton made landfall near Siesta Key, Florida at about 8.30pm local time. The US National Hurricane Centre reports the hurricane had maximum sustained winds of 120mph.
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Latest update:
Hurricane Milton brought misery to a coast still ravaged by Helene as it ploughed into Florida as a Category 3 storm, pounding cities with winds of over 100 mph (160 kph) after producing a barrage of tornadoes.
But the storm spared Tampa a direct hit.
It tracked to the south in the final hours and made landfall on Wednesday night in Siesta Key near Sarasota , about 70 miles (112 kilometres) south of Tampa .
The situation in the Tampa area was still a major emergency as St Petersburg recorded over 16 inches (41 centimetres) of rain, prompting the National Weather Service to warn of flash flooding there as well as other parts of western and central Florida .
Tropicana Field, the home of the Tampa Bay Rays baseball team in St Petersburg , appeared badly damaged.
The fabric that serves as the domed stadium's roof was ripped to shreds by the fierce winds.
It was not immediately clear if there was damage inside. Multiple cranes were also toppled in the storm, the weather service said.
St Petersburg residents also could no longer get water from their household taps because a water main break led the city to shut down service.
The storm knocked out power across a large section of Florida , with more than three million homes and businesses without power as of early Thursday, according to poweroutage.us, which tracks utility reports.
Before Milton even made landfall, tornadoes were touching down across the state. The Spanish Lakes Country Club near Fort Pierce , on Florida's Atlantic Coast, was hit particularly hard, with homes destroyed and some residents killed.
"We have lost some life," St Lucie County Sheriff Keith Pearson told WPBF News , though he would not say how many people were killed.
A group is silhouetted against a fallen crane along 1st Avenue South near the Tampa Bay Times offices in St. Petersburg, Florida. Bricks and debris on the ground.
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Hurricane Milton is expected to make landfall on the west coast of Florida late on Wednesday night, amid warnings that a life-threatening storm surge could cause "extreme flooding", according to the Met office.
The "dangerous and destructive" storm comes in the wake of devastation caused by Hurricane Helene just weeks ago.
An astronaut captured a jaw-dropping new view of Hurricane Milton from the International Space Station on Wednesday
Quick warning - there is a lot of fake AI images and videos of Milton doing the rounds on social media, so do check your sources before sharing.
Oooops.....
The BBC Weather website is showing 'impossible values' for 'hurricane force winds' in cities around the country, including Manchester and Nottingham. The weather for Manchester shows hourly forecasts of six, seven and eight degrees, but winds of almost 14,000mph - and perhaps most surprisingly, a zero per cent chance of rain.
But a message has gone out over BBC radio and on social media that there has been a technical glitch with the service. Lead BBC weather presenter and meteorologist Simon King took to X, formerly Twitter, to say at 6.24am: "Oops, don’t be alarmed by some of our @bbcweather app data this morning.
"Be assured there won’t be 14408mph winds, hurricane force winds or overnight temperatures of 404°C. It is being looked at and hopefully sorted ASAP."
Milton slammed into a Florida region still reeling from Hurricane Helene, which caused heavy damage to beach communities with storm surge and killed a dozen people in seaside Pinellas County alone.
Earlier, officials issued dire warnings to flee or face grim odds of survival.
"This is it, folks," said Cathie Perkins , emergency management director in Pinellas County , which sits on the peninsula that forms Tampa Bay .
"Those of you who were punched during Hurricane Helene, this is going to be a knockout. You need to get out, and you need to get out now."
By late afternoon, some officials said the time had passed for such efforts, suggesting that people who stayed behind hunker down instead. By the evening, some counties announced they had suspended emergency services.
Storm conditions from Hurricane Milton have already hit Fort Meyers in Florida.
The Met Office said the hurricane could bring uncertainty to UK weather next week if its remnants end up in the Atlantic, but added Milton was "highly unlikely to reach the UK".
The weather service said Milton was expected to be a "dangerous and destructive hurricane as it makes landfall", with the risk of a substantial storm surge.
Met Office tropical prediction scientist Julian Hemming said Milton's "extremely strong winds" could cause "severe structural damage".
He added: "But also the thing we're really concerned about is the storm surge.
"And around the hurricane, and particularly to the south of the eye of the hurricane, we could get a storm surge of up to 15ft, which would cause extreme flooding along the coastal strip."
The US National Weather Service has issued the highest level of flood warning to more than two million residents within Milton's path.
Blackouts from the damaging storm have plunged 1.6 million people into darkness so far, as per the electrical fault website poweroutage.us.
Virgin Atlantic, British Airways and Tui are among the airlines to have cancelled flights between the UK and Florida .
A number of airports in Florida have closed to commercial operations, including Orlando International , Melbourne Orlando International and Tampa International .
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