Tropical Storm Helene is gaining strength as it approaches Florida

Tropical Storm Helene has strengthened as it moves into the Gulf of Mexico, where it threatens to engulf the Yucatan Peninsula before hitting the west coast of Florida as a major hurricane on Thursday.

Helene’s winds increased to 70 miles (113 kilometers) per hour as it spun 60 miles east-northeast of Cozumel, Mexico, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said in an advisory at 8 a.m. morning in New York. The storm’s winds are forecast to reach at least 120 mph, making it a Category 3 on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale, and there is a chance they will be even stronger.

“Helene is expected to become a hurricane later today,” Robbie Berg, a meteorologist at the hurricane center, wrote in his forecast. “The storm is forecast to strengthen rapidly over the eastern Gulf of Mexico and become a major hurricane on Thursday.”

This means Helene will make landfall with tree-toppling winds. Although it is forecast to make landfall in Florida’s rural Big Bend region, it will drop up to 15 inches of rain across the state and the southern US as it moves inland, causing widespread power outages and disruption to ground and air transportation . Rivers will rise, leading to days of flooding in some areas.

Damage and economic losses are likely to be in the range of $12 billion to $15 billion, said Chuck Watson, a disaster modeler at Enki Research.

Mandatory and voluntary evacuations began in 13 counties in Helene’s path, the Florida Division of Emergency Management said in an X post. In addition, Gov. Ron DeSantis declared a state of emergency in 61 counties. Sarasota County asked residents in several neighborhoods to begin evacuating their homes Wednesday, according to the county’s website. Georgia Governor Brian Kemp also declared a state of emergency in his state.

Helene will cross an area of ​​the Gulf with water temperatures between 86 F (30 C) and 89 F, meaning there is plenty of fuel to help her grow stronger. There is little wind shear destroying the storm, so Helene is likely to reach Category 4 strength, said Tyler Roys, meteorologist at AccuWeather Inc. commercial forecasting.

Roys said Helene will most likely weaken before landfall, so it is not expected to make landfall in Florida Thursday night as a Category 4 storm. But the area Helene is crossing has seen more storms blowing up in strength in recent years, including Hurricane Michael in 2018, the last Category 5 hurricane to hit the continental US.

Ahead of Helene, heavy rains will bring flooding from Alabama to Virginia. Atlanta, the site of a critical late-season series between the New York Mets and Atlanta Braves, will likely be flooded starting Wednesday.

As Helene moves inland over the weekend, its winds will lash the region, bringing down many trees and adding to power outages in Georgia, North Carolina and Tennessee, Roys said.

In the Pacific earlier this week, Hurricane John killed at least two people when it made landfall in Mexico’s Guerrero state before dissipating Tuesday afternoon. Its remnants bring heavy rains to the region, including Acapulco.

The flooding from John, with more potentially to come from Helene, came just days before Mexican President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum takes office on Oct. 1. That raises the stakes for the incoming administration’s handling of the crisis in its early days. in the office.

In addition to Helene, the hurricane center is tracking two other potential storms far from land in the central Atlantic.

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