Hurricane Milton is continuing to rapidly intensify before its expected landfall along Florida’s Gulf Coast sometime Wednesday. The National Hurricane Center on Monday issued a hurricane watch for a stretch of the coastline including Tampa Bay, which remained roughly in the middle of the forecast cone.

Hurricane Milton has rapidly strengthened into a Category 4 hurricane on a path toward Florida population centers including Tampa and Orlando, threatening a dangerous storm surge in Tampa Bay and setting the stage for potential mass evacuations less

People across Florida were given notice Sunday that Hurricane Milton is intensifying rapidly and will likely be a major hurricane before slamming midweek into the storm-ravaged Gulf Coast.