A Florida meteorologist with decades of experience under his belt became emotional on Monday during his on-air discussion of Hurricane Milton, a monstrous storm expected to make landfall in his state this week.
“It’s just an incredible, incredible, incredible hurricane,” John Morales, a meteorologist for Miami’s local NBC affiliate, NBC 6 South Florida, warned viewers on Monday.
He started to provide details about Milton before getting choked up.
“It has dropped 50 millibars in 10 hours,” Morales said haltingly, describing the storm’s massive drop in air pressure. “Um ... I apologize. This is just horrific.”
As of Monday afternoon, Milton had “explosively” intensified into a Category 5 hurricane with sustained winds of up 175 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center. The storm was expected to lash Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula late Monday into Tuesday before continuing to make its way to Florida, where it is predicted to make landfall late Wednesday. The storm is expected to be downgraded to a Category 3 hurricane by then, which is still powerful enough to cause life-threatening conditions and create catastrophic damage.
“Even though it is expected to weaken on approach, it is so incredibly strong right now that you’re going to find it very difficult for it to be nothing less than a major hurricane when it makes landfall in Florida,” Morales said in the clip.
Florida is still recovering from Hurricane Helene, which hit two weeks ago and left at least 227 people dead across several states. Morales said there’s an obvious answer to what’s causing the increasingly intense storms wreaking havoc across the South.
Milton “is just gaining strength in the Gulf of Mexico, where you can imagine ... the seas are just so incredibly, incredibly hot,” Morales said, adding: “You know what’s driving that. I don’t need to tell you: Global warming. Climate change [is] leading to this and becoming an increasing threat for Yucatán.”