Waffle House, citing the Waffle House Index, closes Tampa locations ahead of Hurricane Milton

Waffle House on Tuesday announced that it had closed its Tampa-area locations ahead of the projected landfall of Hurricane Milton, citing the so-called Waffle House Index as a measure of the storm's severity. 

"Our #whindex status maps reflect our closures as of 2 p.m. today in advance of #HurricaneMilton. More updates to come. Please stay safe," Waffle House wrote in a social media post on X on Tuesday afternoon. 

As of early Wednesday, Hurricane Milton was barreling across the Gulf of Mexico as a "catastrophic Category 5" storm, on track to make landfall along Florida's central west coast, including the Tampa area, late Wednesday or early Thursday the National Hurricane Center said.