Associated Press
In the hours before Hurricane Milton hit, forecasters worried it could send as much as 15 feet of water rushing onto the heavily populated shores of Florida’s Tampa Bay. Instead, several feet of water temporarily drained away. The phenomenon is sometimes called “reverse storm surge.” It’s a function of how hurricane winds move seawater as the storms hit land. At landfall, the spinning wind pushes water onshore on one end of the eye and offshore on the other. Ultimately, the center of east-northeastward-moving Milton made landfall Wednesday night south of Tampa near Sarasota. That meant fierce onshore winds caused a storm surge south of there, while offshore winds blew water away from Tampa.
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