Hurricane Milton, which is expected to make landfall on the Florida coast Wednesday or early Thursday (Oct. 9 or 10), seemed to come out of nowhere: Just a tropical storm on Sunday, the hurricane roared into the Category 5 range Monday (Oct. 7), with sustained winds of 180 mph (298 km/h) before weakening slightly on Tuesday (Oct. 8).
But how close is Milton's sustained wind speed to the theoretical maximum? And is there a hard limit?
