Why Milton's 'reverse surge' sucked water away from flood-fearing Tampa

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Why Milton's 'reverse surge' sucked water away from flood-fearing Tampa

2024-10-11 09:18 Last Updated At：09:20

In the days before Hurricane Milton hit Florida, forecasters were worried it could send as much as 15 feet (4.5 meters) of water rushing onto the heavily populated shores of Tampa Bay.

Instead, several feet of water temporarily drained away.

Why? “Reverse storm surge” is a familiar, if sometimes unremarked-upon, function of how hurricane winds move seawater as the storms hit land — in fact, it has happened in Tampa Bay before.

In the Northern Hemisphere, tropical storm winds blow counterclockwise. At landfall, the spinning wind pushes water onshore on one end of the eye and offshore on the other. Picture drawing a circle that crosses a line, and see how the pencil moves toward the line at one point and away at another.

The most pronounced water movement is under the strong winds of the eyewall, explains Brian McNoldy, a University of Miami senior researcher on tropical storms.

Milton's path toward the central part of Florida's west coast was clear for days, raising the possibility that Tampa Bay could bear the brunt of the surge. But it is always tricky to predict exactly where landfall will happen — and when, which can be important because a daily high tide can accentuate a surge.

To be sure, hazardous wind, rain and some degree of surge can happen far from the center. But the exact location of landfall makes a big difference in where a surge peaks, McNoldy said. Same goes for a reverse, or “negative,” surge.

Ultimately, the center of east-northeastward-moving Milton made landfall Wednesday night at Siesta Key, near Sarasota. It is about 70 miles (112 kilometers) south of the city of Tampa.

That meant fierce onshore winds caused a storm surge south of Siesta Key. The National Hurricane Center said Thursday that preliminary data shows water rose 5 to 10 feet (1.5 to 3 meters) above ground between Siesta Key and Fort Myers Beach.

Meanwhile, the water level abruptly dropped about 5 feet at a National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration gauge near Tampa late Wednesday night.

Hurricane Irma caused a similar effect in 2017. So did Ian in 2022, when people strode out to see what was normally the sea bottom.

In any storm, “that’s an extremely bad idea," McNoldy says. “Because that water is coming back.”

Indeed, water levels returned to normal Thursday morning.

AP PHOTOS: Ratan Tata's legacy is seen throughout India — from meals to work to luxury

2024-10-11 09:09 Last Updated At：09:10

NEW DELHI (AP) — It's hard to imagine many Indian households that aren't somehow touched by the $100 billion conglomerate named for the family of Ratan Tata, who died this week at the age of 86.

Tata has been a mythical name in Indian consumers' imaginations for generations. Every day, all across India, people consume the Tata Group's salt and lentils, commute to work on Tata buses passing Tata cars and trucks after applying Tata beauty products in homes built from Tata steel.

In Kashmir, Firdosa Jan makes tea for her family from a packet labeled Tata Tea Gold. Hundreds of miles away in the northeastern Indian state of Nagaland, 25-year-old Teisovinuo Yhome is cooking a dish on an open fire, using Tata salt for seasoning.

Even though it was a business conglomerate, in the popular imagination, Tata was a man to envy and emulate.

At the turn of the 20th century, Ratan Tata’s grandfather, Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata, built the first luxury hotel in India, and many saw it as better than any the British rulers had built in the country. His uncle JRD Tata started the first airline in the country, and it earned praise for its service and punctuality.

Tata was socially conscious before corporate social responsibility became a buzzword for businesses.

The group was the first to introduce early employee benefit programs for its workers in 1896. It built a hospital in Jamshedpur, before starting a steel mill there. In 1892, it established an endowment fund for Indian students seeking to pursue higher studies abroad and in 1909 founded the Indian Institute of Science, now a public research university.

With time its legend has only grown. In 2008, the company grabbed headlines with its “People's Car," the Tata Nano. The car cost about $2,000 at its launch. In the same year, Tata acquired the iconic British brands of Jaguar and Land Rover.

Its product portfolio boasts dozens of brands. The ubiquitous Tata cars, watches, air conditioners, soaps, salt and tea are only a fraction of what the group produces or markets.