Milton makes landfall south of Tampa

Hurricane Milton has slammed into Florida, making landfall just south of Tampa as a Major Hurricane.

Milton made landfall near Siesta Key, south of Tampa Bay, at 8.30 pm local time on Wednesday 9th October. Milton was still a Major Hurricane at Category 3 intensity.

Peak wind gusts were recorded in Venice with 107 mph and Sarasota-Bradenton Airport with 105 mph.

Tampa and St Petersburg are some cities that have witnessed extreme rainfall and widespread flash flooding. Our US weather reporter is on the scene, in the footage above.

129 mm of rain was recorded in just 1 hour in St Petersburg, with 422 mm in 24 hours, making this a once-in-1000-years event for this area. 

With the landfall just south of Tampa, where the worst storm surge could have been, heavy rainfall was largely the cause of the severe flooding, rather than storm surge.

That being said, storm surge still produced flooding up to 3 metres (over 9 feet) further south in areas such as Sarasota and Venice, leading to significant devastation.

On top of the hurricane's strong winds and rain, the outer feeder bands also produced a record-breaking series of tornadoes across large parts of Florida.

So far there have been 36 confirmed tornado reports, amidst 126 tornado warnings that were issued. This is the second highest number of tornado warnings issued in a single state in one day.