Hurricane Helene is making its way toward the west coast of Florida.

Tropical Storm Debby at Magic Kingdom

While Disney World likely won’t see a direct hit from the hurricane, experts are predicting plenty of wind and rain in the area with possible flooding. And now, Disney World has issued an important closure ahead of Hurricane Helene’s arrival.

Disney’s Typhoon Lagoon Water Park will be closed on Thursday, September 26th due to the severe weather anticipated from Hurricane Helene. At the time of press, all other Disney World parks will remain open (aside from Blizzard Beach, which is currently closed already.)

Typhoon Lagoon

In addition, both Fantasia Gardens Mini-Golf and Winter Summerland Mini-Golf will be closed tomorrow. Disney has also canceled the Savor the Savanna, Up Close with Rhinos, Walking with Giants, and Wild Africa Trek tours.

Earlier this morning, Tropical Storm Helene was upgraded to a Category 1 Hurricane and is expected to make landfall near Tallahassee, Florida as at least a Category 3 storm. A new cone model was issued by the National Hurricane Center, forecasting greater than 110 mph winds by Thursday afternoon.

Updated forecast tracks, and happy to see NO shifting from the 5am forecast to the 11am forecast.

These lines are essentially the mid-point of the cone.

Let’s us track any forecast cone shifts.

No tweaks means that our confidence is high… pic.twitter.com/zObLWHXgE1

— Eric Burris (@EricBurrisWESH) September 25, 2024

The National Hurricane Center recommends having preparations completed for the hurricane by early Thursday as it’s likely the hurricane will make landfall later that day. A State of Emergency has been issued for much of the state, with Storm Surge Warnings, Tropical Storm Warnings, and Hurricane Watches in effect for a significant portion of Florida as well.

In addition, Helene’s tropical storm force wind field is expected to be around 370 miles wide, which means that there will likely be widespread wind damage from the storm.

We keep talking about how large the wind field is for #Helene, so we went back to compare.

Helene's tropical storm force wind field just before landfall is forecast to be 370 mi. wide…

Debby earlier this year only had a TS field of 170 mi, Idalia last year was 220 mi; pic.twitter.com/INCqV2cLAs

— Eric Burris (@EricBurrisWESH) September 25, 2024

As depicted by these models and forecasts, the hurricane will likely not pass directly over Orlando or Disney World. However, on September 24th, Governor Ron DeSantis issued an amended State of Emergency to include the counties Disney World resides in.

©NHC

If you’re planning to be in Disney World in the next couple of days, we recommend keeping an eye on this tropical storm and watch out for notifications from Disney on any updates to closures for the parks. If the parks don’t close, you’ll likely want your rain gear with you! We’ll let you know if Disney announces any additional park closures.

In the meantime, make sure you stay tuned to the Disney Food Blog!

When are you heading to Disney World next? Tell us in the comments.