Politics
Meteorologist gets emotional discussing Hurricane Milton’s intensity: ‘Just horrific’
A Florida meteorologist with decades of experience under his belt became emotional on Monday during his on-air discussion of Hurricane Miltona monstrous storm expected to make landfall in his state this week.
“It’s just an incredible, incredible, incredible hurricane,” John Morales, a meteorologist for Miami’s local NBC affiliate, NBC 6 South Florida,warned viewers on Monday.
He started to provide details about Milton before getting choked up.
“It has dropped 50 millibars in 10 hours,” Morales said haltingly, describing the storm’s massive drop in air pressure. “Um … I apologize. This is just horrific.”
As of Monday afternoon, Milton had “explosively” intensified into a Category 5 hurricane with sustained winds of up 175 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center. The storm was expected to lash Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula late Monday into Tuesday before continuing to make its way to Florida, where it is predicted to make landfall late Wednesday. The storm is expected to be downgraded to a Category 3 hurricane by then, which is still powerful enough to cause life-threatening conditions and create catastrophic damage.
“Even though it is expected to weaken on approach, it is so incredibly strong right now that you’re going to find it very difficult for it to be nothing less than a major hurricane when it makes landfall in Florida,” Morales said in the clip.
Florida is still recovering from Hurricane Helene, which hit two weeks ago and left at least 227 people dead across several states. Morales said there’s an obvious answer to what’s causing the increasingly intense storms wreaking havoc across the South.
Milton “is just gaining strength in the Gulf of Mexico, where you can imagine … the seas are just so incredibly, incredibly hot,” Morales said, adding: “You know what’s driving that. I don’t need to tell you: Global warming. Climate change [is] leading to this and becoming an increasing threat for Yucatán.”
Hayley Miller is the senior blog editor for BLN. Previously, she was a senior reporter on HuffPost’s breaking news team. Before she was a reporter, she was a senior editor on HuffPost’s blog team.
South Carolina Republicans defied President Donald Trump and blocked a redistricting measure that would have drawn out the state’s lone Democrat, Rep. Jim Clyburn.
The move Tuesday all but kills their chances of flipping that seat for 2026. It’s possible the GOP will still draw out Clyburn before 2028.
A procedural vote to end debate on the map early failed in the state Senate 24-20, with 12 Republicans joining all Democrats. The state Senate then voted to adjourn until June 10, effectively ending any hope of redistricting before the midterms.
It’s a massive pivot from just two weeks ago, when GOP Gov. Henry McMaster chose to call a special season to redraw after pressure from Trump and the White House. Now, Republican lawmakers who defected in South Carolina could face the same fate in 2028 as Indiana lawmakers who rebuked Trump — and then lost their primaries to MAGA-aligned challengers.
But because of the timing of the elections — the timing they refused to change — the South Carolina Republicans will likely be safe until the 2028 primaries, as early voting has already begun for this year.
The rebuke from fellow Republicans came as a shock to Trump’s political operation, according to one person close to the White House granted anonymity to discuss the internal dynamics. McMaster never gave the White House a heads up that the vote was on track to fail, the person said.
McMaster’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The state’s Senate GOP leader, Shane Massey, had long opposed a redraw, giving a fiery speech during a procedural vote earlier this month that received national attention. Despite earlier votes in the Senate looking on pace for a redraw, a number of Republicans flipped on Tuesday, citing the start of early voting as reason for doing so.
Even without the extra seat from South Carolina, Republicans have an overall edge in the redistricting war. But many of those wins came from the courts.
The Supreme Court’s decision earlier this year to narrow the Voting Rights Act has led to swift redraws across other Southern states, and the Virginia Supreme Court erased a four-seat Democratic gerrymander that was approved by voters.
There are still some states outstanding before November. Alabama Republicans are trying to use a 2023 map that eliminates a Democratic-held seat, but it’s jammed up in court. And Louisiana Republicans are still working to pass a map before the midterms.
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