ORLANDO, Fla. – If Hurricane Milton’s path through the Gulf of Mexico looks unusual it’s because it is.
No one alive today has seen a hurricane, or any tropical system for that matter, move from west-to-east with its origins in the Bay of Campeche.
While extremely rare, it has happened before. To find a hurricane that tracked like this, however, you have to go back to 1888.
Since 1848, only four hurricanes that originated in the southwest Gulf of Mexico or Bay of Campeche have made landfall in Florida.
The 1848 hurricane made landfall in Tampa as a major hurricane. In 1859, a Category 1 storm also made landfall near Tampa and moved across Central Florida. In 1867, a Category 2 storm made landfall in the Big Bend after skirting the north Gulf Coast. In 1888, a Category 2 made landfall on the south side of the Big Bend.
While weather data was scarce during this time, pressure data from ships confirmed the approximate locations of tropical storms and hurricanes.
The last hurricane to impact Tampa directly was in 1921, but that storm originated in the western Caribbean and lifted northeast.
Three of the four hurricanes on the list developed and made landfall during the month of October.
We have seen time and time again storms form in the western Caribbean and eventually move into Florida on the Gulf side. The rarity lies with development occurring in the Gulf of Mexico.
While rare, it’s not surprising this track is most common during October.
During the early and latter portion of the hurricane season, a phenomenon known as the Central American Gyre develops over Central America.
This large area of low pressure helps thunderstorms to develop and is a common source region for tropical systems during this time.
In the case of Milton, in addition to a disturbance born out of the Central American Gyre, the remnants of the Pacific’s tropical depression 11 happened to crossover into the Bay of Campeche and southwest Gulf of Mexico to help kickstart development.
It’s also in late September and October that the jet stream starts to push further into the Deep South, influencing the steering a little more.
When hurricanes get strong, their thunderstorms grow very tall and are susceptible to feeling the upper level steering currents.
Milton developed from the remnants of Tropical Depression 11 and the Central American Gyre and hitched a ride on the typical west-to-east flow of weather brought on by the jet stream.
This pattern is what helped to push hurricanes, like Ian and Wilma, into Florida after developing in the western Caribbean.