(Bloomberg) -- Hurricane Helene is strengthening as it sweeps past Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula on its way to a Thursday collision with Florida, where it has already triggered evacuations in advance of its powerful winds and dangerous storm surge.
Helene’s winds rose to 80 miles (129 kilometers) per hour as it churned 85 miles north-northeast of Cozumel, Mexico, the US National Hurricane Center said in an 11 a.m. New York time advisory.
The storm has rapidly intensified, with its winds rising 35 mph in just one day as it enters the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Helene is forecast to peak at 125 mph on Thursday before landfall, making it a Category 3 on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale, and there’s a chance it could be even stronger.
“Devastating hurricane-force winds are expected across portions of northern Florida and southern Georgia where the core of Helene moves inland,” Robbie Berg, a meteorologist at the hurricane center, wrote in his outlook. “Preparations to protect life and property should be completed early Thursday.”
While Helene is 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. The Big Bend is still recovering from Hurricane Debby, which struck that part of the state in early August.
Damages and economic losses will likely be in the $12 billion to $15 billion range, said Chuck Watson, a disaster modeler with Enki Research.
Helene is so large there is a chance dangerous storm surge could inundate all of western Florida, including Tampa Bay far to the south of where it’s forecast to come ashore, Berg wrote. Its forward speed also means its winds will still be strong as it punches its way inland.
Residents along the coast may be surprised because the storm surge is likely to be much higher than usual due to Helene’s size, said Ryan Truchelut, president of WeatherTiger LLC. There could also be wind damage to crops in southwest and central Georgia.
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 traverse 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 cover 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.
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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 Tuesday. The storm had dissipated, but it reformed Wednesday with winds of 40 mph about 110 miles west-southwest of Acapulco. Tropical storm warnings and a hurricane watch have been issued along parts of Mexico’s Pacific coast.
As much as 20 inches of rain is forecast across a large area of the Mexican states of Guerrero, Oaxaca, Chiapas and Michoacan, the hurricane center said. Some isolated spots may get as much as 30 inches.
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.
(Updates storm strength and forecast starting in first paragraph.)
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