Hurricane Milton produced record number of tornado warnings, says NWS
Hurricane Milton's destruction extended beyond the storm surge and powerful winds. The system also produced strong tornadoes in regions that were not directly hit by the hurricane itself.
At least 38 tornadoes were reported across Florida on Wednesday, with more expected as damage surveys continue. At least 126 tornado warnings were issued across the southern half of Florida – a record for the state and the second-most of any state in the U.S. for one day, according to the National Weather Service (NWS).
The tornadoes began Wednesday, hours before Milton made landfall, and in parts of the state that were not on track for a direct hit from the storm.
While the west coast of Florida braced for life-threatening storm surge, the east coast was hit with a tornado outbreak that destroyed more than 100 homes, Kevin Guthrie, executive director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management, said during a briefing Wednesday night.
Multiple tornadoes were reported in South Florida, including in the Miami-Dade area and Fort Pierce, where numerous homes suffered significant damage, officials said. In Wellington, about 15 miles west of West Palm Beach, cars were flipped, trees downed and garages and parts of roofs torn off after a reported tornado rolled through a subdivision.
A traffic camera on I-75 captured a tornado crossing the highway west of Fort Lauderdale on Wednesday evening.
Tornadoes often form outside of and away from the landfall area because isolated thunderstorms in the outer bands of the system promote their formation, Jana Houser, associate professor of meteorology at Ohio State University, told ABC News.
In order to form, tornadoes need localized areas of rotation near the ground, which then are sucked into the air and into the storm, she said.
Tornadoes don't typically form in the eye of the storm because it's too windy and there isn't enough concentration of rotation near the ground, Houser said.
"Once you get into the core of the hurricane, within like the eyewall area, you have just incredibly intense winds, incredibly intense rain," she said. "But those processes don't generally promote tornado formation."
On Florida's west coast, tornados were reported in Fort Myers and Cape Coral, as well as to the north on the Florida peninsula. In Fort Myers, tornadoes ripped the roofs off homes, images show.
Several people died as a result of tornadoes, according to officials. Five were killed in St. Lucie County on Florida's east coast, Gov. Ron DeSantis said in a news conference on Thursday.
Not every tropical system will produce a tornado, Houser said. Days before Milton made landfall, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Storm Prediction Center noted an elevated risk for tornadoes, she said. On Wednesday morning, the enhanced risk indicated a 10% probability for potentially significant tornadoes.
"It's much higher than your average everyday probability of having a tornado, which is on the order of about 100th of a percentile," she said.
Hurricanes have caused a similar number of tornadoes in the past. In 2004, there were 118 confirmed tornadoes across multiple states as a result of Hurricane Ivan, according to NOAA. Similarly, an EF-2 tornado was reported in Texas after Hurricane Beryl struck in July of this year.
More tornado warnings are issued in the present day because of updated radar and tracking technology. Tornado records only go back to 1986.
"This event was not under-forecasted," Houser said.
ABC News' Meredith Deliso, Max Golembo, Daniel Peck and Emily Shapiro contributed to this report.
