I’ve been talking about Hurrican Milton for the last several days and have mentioned that storm surge is the most dangerous part of a hurricane.

The first question you may ask yourself is, what is storm surge? A storm surge is when ocean water rises higher than normal because of a storm, especially during hurricanes or strong coastal storms. This happens because the strong winds push the water toward the shore, and the low pressure in the storm allows the water level to rise. As a result, this extra water can flood coastal areas, causing damage to homes, roads, and anything in its path. Storm surge can be very dangerous, especially when it happens along with high tide.

Hurricane Milton is forecast to generate a surge upwards of 13 feet along some areas of Florida’s West Central coast. In order to visualize that, I gave you a little behind the scenes shot at our weather wall on Wednesday’s Evening News Hour. See that in the video above!