Hurricane Milton made landfall on Florida’s west coast Wednesday night as a Category 3 hurricane, bringing with it life-threatening storm surge, powerful winds and flooding rains.

Milton made landfall near Siesta Key, Florida, Wednesday night at about 8:30 p.m. Eastern Time Wednesday as a Category 3 storm, with maximum sustained winds of 120 mph.  It has since weakened to a Category 1, with the storm continues to move across the Florida peninsula and by early Thursday, was mostly over the Atlantic Ocean

According to the National Hurricane Center, as of 5 a.m. Eastern Time, Milton had maximum sustained winds of 85 miles per hour and was moving off Florida’s east coast. Milton’s center was some 10 miles northeast of Cape Canaveral.   However, forecasters warn that the effects of Milton could still cause potential flooding in parts of Florida’s Gulf Coast with storm surge as high as 3 to 5 feet.

As of press time, more than 3.25 million customers were without power in Florida early Thursday, according to utility tracker PowerOutage.us.

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