(WWJ) – Nearly 2 million people were without power Wednesday evening after Hurricane Ian slammed into the Gulf Coast of Florida earlier in the day.
The National Weather Service is telling locals they should expect "extremely dangerous hurricane winds," and they should "treat these imminent extreme winds as if a tornado was approaching and move immediately to an interior room or shelter NOW."
Speaking live on WWJ's "Weather Wednesday" segment, AccuWeather meteorologist Brian Thompson said it's been quite a while since we've seen a hurricane this strong, especially in this part of Florida.
"Kind of the benchmark storm in this part of Florida, which is near Fort Myers, a good bit south of the Tampa area, is Hurricane Charley back from 2004," Thompson said. "(Ian) made landfall at almost the same spot, but this one is stronger and it's also a broader storm – it's a little bigger than Charley was."
Thompson said shortly after the storm made landfall there were reported wind gusts of about 125 mph and there was a lot of rain.
He said one of the biggest concerns with Ian is the storm surge, which is the "push of water" created by these types of storms.
The storm made landfall south of Tampa, and Thompson says the city is lucky it did.
"We were worried earlier in the week that Tampa Bay was actually going to get the worst of the storm because of the way the storm was moving," he said. "If it had made landfall, say north of Tampa, the flow around an area of low pressure in a hurricane is counterclockwise and the flow around the storm would've pushed some of the strongest winds right into Tampa Bay and that pushes the biggest wall of water into Tampa Bay."
While the storm hit further south, the storm surge is reportedly 15 feet in some places.
