in the past couple of hours, able to strengthen to a category 3. these are the areas within say 50 to 70 miles, not only are we sees tropical storm winds, but even hurricane force winds expected within the next few hours. heavy rainfall on northwestern side of the storm right now. we expect this heavy rainfall to continue for much of thursday morning and much of the afternoon and evening hours. charleston could pick up as much as 6 to 10 inches of rainfall by the time we get into this time tomorrow as the storm begins to gradually pull away. here is the hour by hour breakdown. by 8:00 in the morning, we think the storm will be near its closest approach to charleston, again, 30 to 50 miles offshore. the storm surge at its highest across the region, potentially up to 7 feet. really important to note, when it comes to storm surge in a city like charleston where you're surrounded by two rivers and of course the ocean right in your doorstep here, you're going to have a tremendous amount of water funnel through the low-lying city. charleston built on reclaimed