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

Milton increased to a Category 2 hurricane early Monday as Florida gears up for what could be its biggest evacuation in seven years as the storm heads toward major population centers including Tampa and Orlando.