More than twelve hours before Hurricane Milton made landfall in October 2024, emergency managers across Florida were already managing storm surge watches on the coast and wind and flood alerts inland. Then, with the storm still far offshore, the tornado warnings started. Same storm, three different threats, three different playbooks.
Baron Weather Meteorologist and Solution Engineer Dan Gallagher, whose master’s thesis focused on tornadoes spawned by tropical cyclones, revisited the subject at Esri’s Central Florida GIS Workshop. His presentation is a case study of Milton, but it isn’t just a look back. It shows what emergency managers can do in real time when weather data lives inside ArcGIS.
A Prolific Tornado Producer
Almost every hurricane produces tornadoes, but Milton was a prolific tornado producer, with 61 tornado reports in Florida before landfall. The first tornado touched down when Milton’s center was more than 300 miles from the coast, and the strongest all struck while the storm was more than 200 miles from landfall, many on the opposite side of the state.
Hurricane ratings like Category 3 or 4 only measure wind. They don’t show the tornadoes, rainfall, or flooding that can arrive hours before landfall or far from the coast.
Built for Real-Time
Dan walks through a Milton dashboard created in ArcGIS with Baron Weather Layers. It brings together high-resolution radar, rainfall rates, flash flood risk, gap-free wind, and Storm Intel tracking.
Everything in the case study can be done in real time. The same dashboards and web maps update live as a storm unfolds, so you can track every threat as it develops with your assets and community, down to street-level.
Watch the Full Presentation
Bring Weather into Your ArcGIS Workflows
Ready to see how Baron Weather Layers fit into your workflows?
Explore the Data Discovery here or request a demo here.
