Isabelle Gerretsen
Senior journalist, BBC Future

Before it made landfall in Florida, Milton intensified explosively to a Category 5 hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico.

Rapid intensification of hurricanes is becoming more common as oceans get hotter. The heat in the oceans is the fuel that powers storms, so the warmer the water is, the more energy they can pump into hurricanes. Storms are now 25% more likely than they were 40 years ago to be classified as a major hurricane, reaching wind speeds of 111 mph (180km/h).

With sea surface temperatures at near record-highs globally this summer, external, scientists say more intense storms are unsurprising.

Read more about how climate change is rewriting the rules of extreme storms.

Image source, Pinellas County Government

We can now bring you some good news out of Florida, after more than 400 people were successfully rescued from an apartment complex in Pinellas County, near where Hurricane Milton came ashore on Wednesday night.

"I was sure - and I'm glad I was wrong - that we were going to see some casualties out of that" situation, Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said during a news conference on Thursday.

Just hours ago, authorities were able to stage a water rescue at an apartment complex, which Gualtieri described as "one of the most significant" he had ever seen.

The complex, which was said to house about 2,000 residents, was severely flooded. "Some of the water was as high as the second-floor balcony," Gualtieri described.

While he thought there could be casualties, Gualtieri discovered that many people on the first floor had moved to their neighbours' flats on the second floor when the water started coming in.

Using high-water vehicles and boats, the rescue team later rescued approximately 430 people in the complex, Gualtieri said.

"It's probably one of the most significant water rescues of that magnitude that I've seen here in Pinellas County ever."

The evolving death toll left from Hurricane Milton is changing as authorities and first responders evaluate the situation on the ground in Florida.

Authorities, local officials and medical examiners are reporting various tallies that we're examining.

BBC and our US news partners at CBS are working to confirm information as it comes in and have reported the death toll as at least 10. Earlier, CBS had reported 11.

We'll keep working to bring you the latest.

If you're just joining us or want to get caught up on the latest, here are the top lines out of Florida, where the search and rescue and recovery operations are ongoing after Hurricane Milton passed over the state.

• Milton has weakened and is no longer officially a hurricane. It's now a "hurricane-force extratropical low", but that doesn't mean it's lost all its power as wind and water continues to threaten Florida's east coast
• There have been at least 10 deathsattributed to the storm, according to the BBC's US partner CBS, including in tornadoes that were spawned by the hurricane
• Authorities are assessing the damage caused by Milton overnight. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said 3.1 million homes and businesses are still without power
• Rescue operations are under way. More than 20 urban search and rescue teams are conducting door-to-door searches
• Land access to Florida is beginning to reopen. For air travel, more than 2,000 flights have been cancelled
• As extra resources are needed to deal with the aftermath, US President Joe Biden says Congress, currently in recess, should return to address the situation immediately

As we reported earlier, rescue workers are still making their way through debris and flooded areas throughout Florida, so the total number of dead and injured may not yet be known.

For now, we can let you know that at least 11 people have died in Florida, according to CBS News, the BBC's US partner.

According to CBS, four deaths were reported in Volusia County, a coastal community about 50 miles east of Orlando.

Two were killed in St Petersburg, officials said, without providing more detail. In Inverness, 75 miles north of Tampa, a 46-year-old man died overnight after a falling tree collided with his car while driving.

As we previously reported, four had been confirmed dead in St Lucie County, where multiple tornados broke out, destroying the local sheriff's office.

Speaking this afternoon, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said the total number of deaths was not yet completely clear.

And Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas said earlier today that 10 people had been killed, but that the number is still very “fluid".

“We are just beginning damage assessment,” he said.

“We have 10 confirmed fatalities. Our understanding is that those fatalities were caused by the tornados.”

It is our job to make sure that number does not climb through valiant search and rescue efforts,” he continued.

Milton has turned into a "hurricane-force extratropical low", according to the latest update from the National Hurricane Center, external (NHC).

However, this doesn't mean it's lost all its power. Communities alone the eastern coast of Florida are still experiencing tropical storm conditions and storm surges, according to the NHC. There are still hurricane-force winds extending out up to 70 miles (110 km) northwest of the storm's centre.

"The centre of Milton will continue to move away from the east coast of Florida and pass north of the north-western Bahamas this afternoon", the update says.

Mike Wendling
US digital reporter

Image source, EPA

Experts say online misinformation exploded after Hurricane Helene – and they’re bracing for another big round after Milton.

The scale and speed of false rumours is unprecedented, researchers tell the BBC. The falsehoods include fake stories about weather manipulation, authorities confiscating land or blocking aid, posts about supposed plots against people in rural areas and more.

But not only are the falsehoods being spread to more people from only a few sources – fewer than three dozen false or abusive posts were viewed 160 million times on X, according to the Institute of Strategic Dialogue think tank – but they have taken on a sharper political edge than in previous crises.

Many of the most viral posts come from accounts which staunchly support Donald Trump and his Make America Great Again agenda. And they are taking aim at foreign aid and migrants.

"Every crisis event, a natural disaster or a political crisis, we are hit with narratives about migrants and the war in Ukraine, it’s simply part of the online landscape," says the ISD's Moustafa Ayad.

"Whether or not they are true or false is a different story. The ones that we are seeing having a huge viral impact are patently false, or based on the smallest grain of truth, twisted out of all recognition."

Misinformation around weather has evolved over the last several years, from the pranksters and alarmist posts about looting that, for instance, circulated around previous tropical storms.

Now the scale is bigger and we’re seeing weather-related false stories directly linked to key issues in next month's election in the US.

Ayad says that does not bode well for election day itself.

"I don't know how well prepared we as a society are for the amount of misinformation we’re going to be dealing with," he says.

False videos circulate online after Hurricane Miltonpublished at 20:16 British Summer Time 10 October

20:16 BST 10 October

by Rozina Sini, Paul Myers, Emma Pengelly

False videos have been circulating on social media purporting to show Hurricane Milton.

One account on X with 10,000 followers shared three clips with the hashtag #hurricanemilton2024. The post has been viewed more than 230,000 times but two of the three pieces of footage do not actually show the effects of Hurricane Milton.

The first video, external shows a large tornado and flashes of lightning strikes. However BBC Verify has found evidence that the video has been altered and was shared online as early as September 2023. While another video, external was filmed earlier this year in Iowa and shows a tornado tearing through Des Moines.

To add to the confusion, a real video, external was shared alongside the misleading ones, which shows damage to homes in Florida. BBC Verify geolocated it to a residential street near West Palm Beach which is on the east coast. A reverse image search indicates it was filmed yesterday when there were reports of tornadoes passing through the area.

Old footage labelled as Hurricane Milton is also being shared on TikTok, external. One video said to show “Milton making landfall near Siesta Key”, viewed one million times, is actually a compilation of tornadoes in Pilger, Nebraska filmed more than 10 years ago.

Sheriff Chad Chronister and his department's Marine Unit rescued a 14-year-old boy in Hillsborough County, Florida, in the aftermath of Hurricane Milton.

Earlier today Americast recorded a special live episode to assess the impact of Hurricane Milton.

Sarah Smith joined from Miami where she was surveying damage on the ground. In London, Marianna Spring was in the studio with Adam Fleming and Justin Webb to discuss the scale of misinformation online, which has prompted Joe Biden to label such actions as "un-American".

And, the team try to understand what the ramifications of all this could be on the upcoming presidential election.

The special is available to listen to on BBC Sound.

Minreet Kaur
In Florida

Image source, Minreet Kaur / BBC

This trip was meant to be a sunny one for us, with a visit to Disney World Orlando, and a visit to Tampa for the beach.

My mum, who is 73, is finally in remission from battling a blood cancer called myeloma, so I decided to surprise her and bring her here after a rough year.

But, the weather here has been more rain than sun, and now we are living through one of the worst hurricanes in a decade.

When the hurricane hit the hotel I thought it was going to rip right through the hotel or at least take the roof off.

I now understand the pain Floridians go through when hurricanes hit and respect how they don’t panic, as to them it’s normal. To us Brits it’s a shock to the system.

Florida is certainly gave us more than a sunny holiday at Disney.

• Read Minreet Kaur's full account of her experience here

As first responders wade through floodwaters and clear fallen trees and power lines after Hurricane Milton's passage through Florida last night, there is not yet a clear picture of the total number of deaths the storm may have caused.

We reported earlier four people were killed in St Lucie County after multiple tornadoes hit the area.

And St Petersburg's chief of police Anthony Halloway said two people had died in the central Florida city.

But as we learn more about the post-storm picture in the state, the toll may go up.

As we told you in an update earlier this afternoon, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said there had been five deaths in St Lucie County, though it's not clear whether those were all due to the tornadoes there.

There are also reports of other deaths elsewhere, which we are working to confirm.

We've contacted local officials for more information and we'll bring you an update as soon as we can.

Image source, EPA

As promised, we can now bring you the key points from US President Biden on the initial impact of Hurricane Milton.

He says it is still too early to tell just how bad the damage from the storm might be. “There’s still very dangerous conditions in the state,” he says, adding that he knows from past experience that more lives are sometimes lost after hurricanes pass through than during a hurricane itself.

Biden also points out that “there is going to be a need for significant amounts of money" to manage the aftermath, and says that Congress, whose members are currently in recess, should return and address emergency needs immediately.

"They're going to have to come back after the election as well, because this is going to be a long haul for total rebuilding,” he says. "It's going to take several billion dollars."

"It's not going to be a matter of just a little bit, but we're providing now to make sure people have the emergency relief they need."

We're expecting President Joe Biden to speak shortly about the latest recovery efforts in Florida after Hurricane Milton.

Stick with us, we'll bring you the top lines. And you can watch him live for yourself at the top of this page.

Tom Bateman
Reporting on the road to St Petersburg, Florida

We’re still on the road heading towards St Petersburg on the Gulf Coast, which has sustained a lot of damage.

When we left Orlando, I chatted to families also about to make the journey. Many evacuated their homes on the coast shortly before the storm.

Nancy and Norman Stewart live on the twelfth floor of a high-rise condominium in downtown Tampa and left three days ago.

"We had to get out," says Nancy of their reaction when they learned Milton had moved from a category one to a category five hurricane, referring to the speed it was coming and the fact that, after Helene, they were going to experience a second hurricane “back to back”.

“I was just talking with my neighbour… all of our units are safe, we were very, very fortunate,” she says as the couple sit petting their dog Louis.

Shortly afterwards, I see them pack their belongings and Louis into a car to head home.

We’ve been on the road now more than two hours. The traffic has been bumper to bumper most of the way back to the West Coast.

Elizabeth Rizzini
BBC Weather

Hurricanes are fuelled by high sea-surface temperatures and the energy from evaporation. Once they make landfall, they lose the source of that energy, and with the friction of the land start to break up and weaken.

At its strongest over the Gulf of Mexico Milton was a Category 5. It weakened a little before it made landfall on the west coast of Florida as a Category 3 hurricane, and then weakened further to a Category 1 as it whirled over land - but it still exited the east coast of Florida with hurricane force.

By contrast, Hurricane Helene a few weeks ago weakened on an inland track across Georgia and the Carolinas - a huge landmass.

The key to this is that Milton was a fast-moving hurricane, moving at a speed of 17 knots and pulling away from the coastline at 20 knots. Its approach to western Florida was perpendicular - meaning it only had a narrow landtrack over the Florida peninsula before it ended up over open water once again, this time in the Atlantic.

Milton is still a hurricane (just) as of early Thursday afternoon local time, but it has cleared land. The National Hurricane Center is warning that it could still bring a storm surge of up to 5 ft for parts of the north-east Florida coast into southern Georgia, and there are still warnings for tropical strom force winds and dangerous rip currents for the eastern coast. Further west, there are still fears of further flooding - especially at high tide as rainwater runs into river catchments.

Holly Honderich
Reporting from Miami, Florida

Image source, Chynna Perkins

In her home in West Tampa, just a 20 minute drive east from Florida’s Gulf Coast, Chynna Perkins woke up to blue skies.

Her backyard was filled with puddles and fallen leaves, but she had avoided any serious damage.

"We fared the storm well," she said. "You can hear people's generators already kicking on and chainsaws in the background, so it sounds like people are already getting to work."

Despite dire warnings from local officials urging residents to evacuate, Perkins and her husband had decided to bear down and wait it out at home.

But Perkins was not without fear.

“My anxiety has been through the roof this whole time. I’m trying not to throw up thinking about it. It is very very eerie, just to see and hear how powerful it is,” she told me on Wednesday night.

Now, she’s just relieved that it’s over.

• You can read more about Chynna's story here

Image source, The Orange City Fire Department

The storm has caused some roads and pavements in Orange City - just north of Orlando - to collapse into the ground.

Photos shared on the Orange City Fire Department's Facebook page shows huge sections of tarmac that have crumbled away.

The department says "multiple roadways" have either "been completely washed away or are flooded", and urged drivers to stay off the roads.

It says crews are now out assessing the damage.

Image source, The Orange City Fire Department

Image source, The Orange City Fire Department

Image source, The Orange City Fire Department

We’ve been hearing from Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in Fort Pierce, a city in St. Lucie County, on Florida's east coast

He begins by giving an update on the death toll in St Lucie County, where there are now five confirmed dead. We had previously heard that there were four deaths from tornadoes in the area. It's "a tragic thing", DeSantis says, noting that there is not yet a total confirmed count of deaths throughout the state.

DeSantis says he believes a lot of people living in the state's evacuation zones did end up leaving.

He also tells us more about ongoing rescue operations, which he predicts will stabilise throughout the day.

The news on power outages hasn't changed much from the last update we heard - DeSantis says more than four million people customers been impacted, with power so far restored in about 700,000 homes and businesses.

The Florida governor also says he expects supermarkets and petrol stations to reopen fairly quickly as authorities work on getting more fuel into the state. "We've done about 130 escorts with Florida Highway Patrol. My hope is there’s minimal interruption with fuel," he says

DeSantis also says damage to ports is being assessed, with east coast ports not suffering a great deal of damage.

The state prepped well, he says. "I think that we probably have an abundance of resources."

But that "doesn't mean there's not going to be a lot we're going to have to contend with".