Tropical Storm Helene Gains Power as It Bears Down on Florida

Tropical Storm Helene grew stronger as it moved into the Gulf of Mexico, where it threatens to clip the Yucatan Peninsula before striking Florida’s west coast as a major hurricane on Thursday.

Helene’s winds rose to 70 miles (113 kilometers) per hour as it churned 60 miles east-northeast of Cozumel, Mexico, the US National Hurricane Center said in an 8 a.m. New York time advisory. 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’s a chance it could 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 rapidly strengthen over the eastern Gulf of Mexico and become a major hurricane on Thursday.”

This means Helene will land with tree-snapping winds. While it’s forecast to make landfall in Florida’s rural Big Bend region, it will drop as much as 15 inches of rain across the state and the US South as it moves inland, leading to widespread power outages and disrupting ground and air transportation. Rivers will rise, leading to days of flooding in some areas.

Damages and economic losses will likely be in the $12 billion to $15 billion range, said Chuck Watson, a disaster modeler with Enki Research.

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

Helene will cross an area of the Gulf with water temperatures ranging from 86F (30C) to 89F, meaning there is a lot of fuel to help it grow stronger. There is little storm-wrecking wind shear, so it’s possible Helene will reach Category 4 strength, said Tyler Roys, a meteorologist at commercial forecaster AccuWeather Inc.

Roys said Helene will most likely weaken before landfall, so he doesn’t expect it to come ashore in Florida on Thursday night as a Category 4 storm. But the area Helene will traverse has seen several storms explode in strength in recent years, including Hurricane Michael in 2018, the last Category 5 hurricane to hit the US mainland.

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

As Helene moves inland over the weekend, its winds will rake the region, leading to many trees toppling and adding to power outage woes throughout Georgia, North Carolina and Tennessee, Roys said.

In the Pacific earlier this week, Hurricane John killed at least two people when it came ashore in Mexico’s Guerrero state before dissipating Tuesday afternoon. Its remnants are bringing heavy rains across the region, including Acapulco.

The floods from John, with more potentially to come from Helene, have arrived just days before Mexican President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum is set to take office on Oct. 1. That’s raising the stakes for the incoming administration to manage the crisis in her first days in office.

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