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.

As the booming region faces the possibility of a direct hit from a major hurricane, the risks from storm surge are severe.

Hurricane Milton intensified into a Category 4 Hurricane over the Gulf of Mexico early Monday as it barreled toward the Florida Gulf coast, less than two weeks after Hurricane Helene left devastating flooding across parts of the southeastern U.S.