To be here with you. Bill is telling me that it will rain. Which is sad. It may rain on the parade, yes indeed. There are so many things going on right now. We are hoping the rain stays away. We have different models that are progressing in different ways so wildly will have clouds all day it doesnt look as though this will be one of those complete washouts. Look live right now from the river gate tower camera and we are seeing the clouds that will stay thick throughout the day. Were also seeing as we look at satellite radar composite, the showers moving in around the nature coast through big bend. Those showers will creep closer to us by this afternoon and midafternoon hours. Stand a chance of seeing showers work through. 70 tampa clearwater, mostly cloudy took cloudy skies. Winds out of the south and southeast shifting out of the southwest by later on. Florida strawberry festival in plant city. Family day today. Midway opens at 10 00. The band perry will be taken the stage. We could see clearing this evening but we wont have sunshine. Partly cloudy skies and a chance for showers and thunderstorms 82. More details and we will pinpoint the movement of the showers and storms coming up in 12 minutes. The bay area remembers the Hillsborough County deputy killed in a wrong way crash yesterday. Deputy john kotfila junior was a deputy for six years known for his compassion and dedication to protect answer. Jake peterson has been a top of the stories of the broke yesterday. He is live outside of the sheriffs department. More on this deputy. Reporter good morning. A very tough morning for deputies and Hillsborough County. They are putting the flags at half staff at the Fallen Officers Memorial and ybor city. This is a list of all of the deputies and their stories who have died in the line of duty here and Hillsborough County. Deputy kotfila will have his story on the small. Investigators piecing together by 31yearold erik mcbeth was driving westbound in the eastbound lane of the selmon expressway. To the speeding and hit caught felis patrol car headon. Kotfila was wellliked. Who wanted to be a traffic homicide investigator. You can imagine his colleagues were very emotional after this crash. Take a listen. It is like losing a family member. And it drives at home to all of the deputies because it could of been his car or anyone elses car. For funeral arrangements are pending and this is the fifth wrong way down this year in the tampa bay area. What fdot plans to do coming up. For now, jake peterson, abc action news. The man driving the wrong way and the deadly crash. 31yearold erik mcbeth was behind the wheel and he worked his neighbor say never cause this is the latest in a long history of wrong way crash is in the bay area. Killed in a wrong way crash onto 75 in tampa from 2009 it 36 wrong way crash is. All in the bay area. Several of them were fatal. Fdot said the crashes involved in prayer drivers. Hoping to curb the problem fdot install flashing signs in some hotspots. The installed vehicle detectors and cameras at certain interchanges. Thoughts and prayers continue to pour in. You can offer condolences to family of deputies. Go to our Facebook Page and abc action news. Finding a driver who left a bicyclist burdett. A pickup truck hit a 22year old man at e. 30th avenue. The truck is described as an older dark blue pickup possibly a toyota and a full bed topper and a damaged windshield in the roof. Anyone who recognizes that description is urged to call police. Crash in tampa the southbound lanes of the public a day cuba were shut down for hours. It is south of 28th avenue east. Officers are releasing few details only saying this accident happened around 10 15 pm last night and one person is dead. A man wanted for try to suffocate and kidnap a woman in hudson is behind bars. Deputies caught up to the suspect jason chilly been. Last week he put a bag over a womans head tried to keep her in his car. Deputies arrested him friday and he is charged with felony false imprisonment. A day at the florida gun range almost turned deadly. Six people were hurt yesterday when a gun went off by accident. This happened in marion county. A man was loading an antique shotgun when it accidentally fired and travel that shrapnel ricocheted off of concrete hitting the victims. Although we cover. Shocking new video from the campaign trail. Police pepper spraying clouds outside of a trump rally in kansas city. The Department Says officers used pepper spray price. Two people arrested. Trump called on all protesters at his rallies to be arrested. He can legally ask for protesters to be kicked out that he cannot wear ordered anyone to be arrested. Downtube richard cantu. Reporter it sounds like you have a few protesters back there and the hell with them. He campaigned in kansas city saturday night. Still dogged by hecklers determined to keep them from speaking. We will take our country back from these people. Effort yet. When a protester charged the stage. Secret service sprang to defense. Agents overpowered the wouldbe assailant. I dont know if i wouldve done well that i would have been in their. Friday night trump leaders crashed a trump rally bent on destruction. He is not welcome in this crowd. Trump canceled the event but the violence pulled into the street. Trump play blamed Bernie Sanders supporters. Sanders called trump a candidate who has in fact in many ways encouraged violence. Political arson. Trump got no sympathy from republicans. Donald trump has created a toxic environment for the campaign trail winds through five states will voters will decide who gets hundreds of delegates. For marco rubio and governor john kasich, tuesday may be make or break. Both candidates are lagging badly. Richard cantu, abc news, new york. We have bright news for rubio and kasich. The Associated Press declared marco rubio the winner of caucuses in washington dc. That earns him 10 delegates. Governor john kasich was runner up and he gets 9. The bay area wraps up early voting in the primary. Hundreds of workers have been busy in tampa selection centers. They spent yesterday collecting supplies getting ready for the primary two days away. You can still vote today from 10 until 6 00. More than 122,000 people have already voted. 62 of the ballots are mail in. Pinellas county, 133,000 people voted early. 95 are mail in. Early voting polls are open from nine ama until 5 pm today in pinellas county. We have locations posted on abc action news. Com. If you dont cast her ballot today you will have to wait until tuesday. Bring a form of id with you. Check out this video. This is not a trump rally but is spring break in miami beach. A large crowd moved from the beach. There were small fights. A few people arrested. Police cleared the clouds in a few hours. The indycar racing season kicks off here in the bay area. Firestone grand prix main event the green flag before 1 pm. Before that the second indy lights race on super trucks autograph session at 11 00. The final race is 4 30 pm. A heads up, security is bumped detectors and baguette checks and more police. Picks up again. We could hear a big ruling from the judge who we could also hear testimony from coming up. A potential for rain on the golf course. It could be wet. We will take a look at the forecast coming up for the valspar championship. The other golf courses in the area will top out at 88 and son and showers. Tomorrow a new decision could come down and the hogan gawker sex tape trial. The judge is weighing whether local radio host a radio personality bubba the love sponge clem will be called to testify. Wife. The video appeared on gawker and the radio host talked about the case on a show saying he wants to move on from the controversy. I can only imagine how that affects the friendship. [ laughter ]. We wont go into that. We will try and pinpoint these showers that will be moving to today. It is a weird week. We have st. Patricks day in the middle of the week so some people have the celebrations now like it chicago. They are dying the river right there. As that city celebrated st. Patricks day today and yesterday. Thousands of folks turning out on the Chicago River to see the dye job. This goes back to 1962. In tampa they have done a dry run but the Hillsborough River will turn green and that will happen next saturday. We will have complete live coverage put that. The water turns color. Were seeing color outside right now. As we look at the circles apollo beach camera. Beautiful look with some blue skies out there. But we are also seeing quite a bit of cloud cover. Just a real time check now, a lot of you may be thinking it is a quarter after seven. Well it is a quarter after eight. Did you remember to spring forward . We will stay lighter and longer in the afternoon but unfortunately the Morning Hours we will stay darker. Rain chances ramping up today up to 40 and we could use the rain. Front that is making its way here we will be maintaining the mild temperatures. Here is the rain now, it is making it around the big bend area and dropping into the bay area by later today. For now it is offshore so were seeing partly cloudy to support lease sunny skies and temperatures that have remained warm overnight. We got down to 68 degrees last night in tampa. Right now it is 70. 68 for st. Petersburg. 66 brandon. 64 zephyrhills. Sebring and also arcadia, 65. We have reduced visibility. The dew point depression which is the area of space between dew point and the temperature has dropped. These areas up fog will be burning off. 64 pensacola. Mild throughout the southeast. The High Pressure has slid to the east which allow this to slide towards us. It want to be moving with a lot of movement and rain that as we go through the day we will see showers dropping down to the nature coast and by 3 00 offshore into the last six holes of valspar championship and we could see the rain through 5 00 as they are wrapping up the grand prix in st. Petersburg. We will update the timing and bring you the updates online abc action news. Com. 40 chance of rain today in st. Petersburg. Winds at 10 to 12. Lets look at the forecast for the race in st. Petersburg. Looking like temperature of 70 degrees. s showers around. We will bring you all the updates as they become available. Most accurate sevenday forecast, 40 chance of showers today will give away a chance of rain tomorrow. Temperatures around 84 highs at the overnight lows mild. Mid60s looking ahead to later this week, brace yourself for nonstop highspeed action at Mcdill Air Force base. Air fest soars back in to the bigger deal. It is the 75th anniversary an in studio with me now is major brian garlow, director of air fest. Air fest has become a huge draw to visitors in tampa bay. The opportunity to see what military does and get a chance to call around 50 aircraft in and get to talk to people that one of the big demonstrations that people are looking forward to the para commanders. It is based out of mcdowell and they have commanders there with her jumps. They are bringing in the American Flag and put to the demonstrations again in the afternoon. What kind of airpower will people see . We also have the thunderbirds show. Amazing acts of bravery. It will be in austin opportunity for us to get back to the community and build the relationship. Like we were talking about before, this is free but reporting this is a big help to air force operations. It is a great free event for everyone to come out and see. It brings the Community Share on what we do and get back. Great support in the area. This is an air force type of thing and the military so people have some things they can bring and cant bring. What are some items. The big one is two rounds. A lot of people have been given drones for christmas but that is not allowed. Do not bring your drums. Also no weapons. There will be highsecurity. We will have more security so we can get people through faster but some of the big ones are out there. When and where . Saturday and sunday, Opening Ceremony at 11 00. Gates open at 8 pm at the thunderbirds will go on late afternoon. Thank you so much. Time sunday rescues an action. Don is here from baileys rescue. Baileys way rescue. We have a big dog so he is down on the floor. This is alex. Hey buddy. Alex is a fiveyearold bulldog mix. He was found as a stray with his brother. He has been patiently waiting for his forever home for a year. You have a good idea what kind of disposition he has. He doesnt do well with cats but good with other dogs. He lays around on the couch with you. Thinks he is a lapdog. Is the about 50 pounds . He is 60 pounds. He is a big boy. Good guard dog packs yes. He is good with kids. He hasnt been around a bunch of kids but the once he has, he has been good. If someone was to get in touch with you about alex . Baileys rescue rescue gmail. Com or give me a call, 7277486446. Thank you for bringing alex lets feature close up on this camera. There you go. If you have room in your home, look at that face. Alex would love to come home with you. We will continue the coverage on the tragic loss of a deputy. You are looking live at the memorial outside of the Sheriffs Office and ybor city. How Law Enforcement are coping. I am clifton french. It is just about 830. People are sending their console and says to the Hillsborough CountySheriffs Office for a deputy killed in the line of duty. Jake peterson is live at the memorial. He has more on this deputy. Reporter yesterday morning Deputy Deputy john kotfila junior was killed. Now kotfila story will be put on the wall at the Fallen Officers Memorial at ybor city. He will be the next to be memorialized here. Investigators are still piecing together why 31yearold erik mcbeth was driving westbound in the eastbound lane of the selmon expressway yesterday. Investigators say he was speeding and hit kotfilas patrol car headon. Both men died. Kotfila wanted to be a traffic investigator later in his career. His colleagues were emotional. This is the fifth wrong way crash in the area this year. More needs to be done. Maybe now that it was a Law Enforcement officer maybe they will wake up. Maybe now we have an issue. It is sad that sometimes things have to happen so many times over and over before they figure out what are we going to do. Fdot did start a Pilot Program last year with these flashing signs on highways that they are still studying to see if those are effective enough to install more of them. Funeral arrangements are pending. Jake peterson. I have a question. Kotfila comes from a Law Enforcement background and his family involved. Those who know him well in Hillsborough County plan to morning. I am over here with bill wilkin in the weather center. Me its going to rain. We will have showers often it will be all day. That you can see the big blob behind us. Is like a washout for the birthday. You may want to take the proper shoot with you. This is moving towards us and it has left a big mess from folks provokes from texas and tennessee. They are dealing with severe flooding. It is really a great view of how bad this is. Millions of people in six states from texas to tennessee are effective. Three are dead in louisiana. One person dead in texas. More rain is falling in the southeast on the way. Expects flash flooding. Flood stage. We wont get flooding rains some rain. Looking out to the west from that tower cam location, cloudy. It is going to stay cloudy all day. Perfect day and as the area of moisture purchase is going to be falling apart that will still have enough strength to move in later today. Temperatures now mild ahead of the front as we get the pop of southeastern warm moist air. 70 temple, 69 largo, 66 longboat key, 63 bartow. Warming up to the 80s later on. Be throughout the day and we will pinpoint where they will fall with our latest model coming up in 12 minutes. Traffic alert in tampa. Repair work on the storm water pipe will have someone avenue shut down from church to dell maybury avenue. Keep an eye out for detours. This will end by tomorrow. Tragedy at the worlds most famous dogsled race. A man admits to plowing a snowmobile into two iditarod teams. 1. Has died and three others are her. These were two separate attacks and when case someone caught a 26yearold confessed to the crimes and apologized saying he was drunk at the time. He is facing assault and other debt following an avalanche in the italian alps. Yesterday, 9800 feet on a mountainside. Rescuers saved eight and one of the hospital this morning. One in austria killed five skiers. Crews have surfaced in the crash of Malaysia Airlines flight 370. The gulf of thailand. A piece of the planemay have been found in mozambique. Take a look, South African teenager found the debris in december, and took ithome not knowing what it could be. His family contacted officials after a different piece of debris was found last week in mozambique. Experts are examining this find to determine where it came from. New concerns about what happens when you check your bags at the airport. This shows two baggage handlers at Orlando International stealing right out of the suitcases. The other one crawls behind the curtain Conveyor Belt taking a 1500 laptop. Both men are pleading no contest. Experts say there are ways to avoid becoming a victim. If you have expensive luggage is probably the one piece of luggage that will be targeted. And the chances of you being targeted goes up dramatically. Experts suggest keep valuables on your carry on and wrap your luggage in plastic. Take photos of the packed bags before zipping it up and if you do notice items missing file a Police Report and call the airline. If you knew everyone was carrying a gun at work which you feel safe . One man says yes and he is pushing to make that a reality in his business. You will meet him next. Weekend edition of positively tampa bay. Consumer protection issues. Were talking to the experts from the Florida Department of agriculture and Consumer Services about what happens when the phone rings and there mass shootings. With your workplace be safer if everyone carried a gun . And owner of a small Insurance Company is leading that debate requiring all of his employees to carry firearms. Workers of the company in georgia have to get a concealed carry permit and get trained. The owner gives each of them a revolver. He says so far the workers have embraced this requirement. Can he do this . A labor lawyer says the employer can legally make you have a gun that usually the requirement is that the business is high risk. And more than 20 states including florida people can keep guns in their cars at work and there are some companies that let you bring a gun to the office. But requiring it is rare. That Business Owner says he decided to do this because anyone can slip in these days if they want to. This may go along with the results of a new study on gun laws from boston university. Researchers looked at 25 state level gun laws aimed at reducing gun death and only nine were effective for the top three were universal background checks, for buying ammunition, and firearm identification. We are taking action for your help. Beware of the pollen. Why the pollen count is so high this year and the signs it that you need to know to look for. Season. A purple heart war veteran robbed of a custom motorcycle. Why it is more than just a bike final days of the florida lifestyle we livestock judging on saturday. The museum of fine arts has three maybe race movies on the lawn. A poor festival at the seminal Recreation Center as well. This is brought to you by hyundai of new port richey. Someone stole a custom motorcycle made for a purple heart recipient. The veteran was injured by an iud in afghanistan. We have video of the thief taking off with that by. It has a powerful black job paint with a purple heart on the gas tank with a date that branded the date the veteran was injured. He was told he would never walk again but was back on his feet and said his bike has been an important part of his healing. That is my release. You have guys that go to war and they do things the human should not do. They see things humans should not see. You need that release or you will explode or implode. When he retired in 2012 he founded a nonprofit called the purple hearts and he wears foundation. It helps veterans and special needs children. I hope he gets back out there. That will stand out. That is some nice artwork. You have to wonder. What are people think it. I am thinking about the rain. I am thinking about how it is going to affect all of the activities that are scheduled for today including the valspar championship including the grand prix st. Petersburg and the gasparilla Music Festival and the final day of the strawberry festival. Tower cam. As we look at the forecast for today we look at social media, hash tag grand prix, we could see what roads later. The slicks will be gone and they were put on the grooved tires. They will still run in the rain with the grand prix. Tetley doppler radar, all part of a massive system that brought flooding rains into the southeast. We have had this huge dome of High Pressure blocking the area of High Pressure. We can get a little bit of that rain in here. It would be good because there is a washout of the pollen. Right now, partly cloudy and 70 degrees in tampa. Clearwater 70 degrees. Southwind at 7 in st. Petersburg. Pretty cloudy there at 68 degrees. This is the big weather system that brought the flooding rain into the mississippi and tennessee valleys. Is losing punch. Lifted to the north. Approaching that as we look at future cast and this is the latest model, it spread it up earlier and floated down. Coast. Offshore showers. At 3 00 it will start to peak on shore around tarpon springs. And the valspar championship. Will be into the southern part of the Pinellas Peninsula and that could present problems for the road racing although it we may be able to dodge the raindrops as they move through. Were pretty warm today with a cold front moving through. Temperatures will hit 80 for much through the workweek. 84 degrees for parts of wachtel. Golf tournament, earlier on cloudy skies and later on we could see storms moving through. We hit the high up near 80 degrees. Heres the most accurate seven day forecast, 40 chance of showers to today, 30 tomorrow. We will stay nice and mild through the workweek. At this point may be a 30 chance of rain on saturday. Taking action for your help. A scratchy throat, watery eyes and sneezing usually means that one thing, allergies. Forecasters are predicting this years allergy season will be worse than ever and they warn a pollen vortex is about to hit. Here to help you through the worst of it, angeles where he. First of all, where is the pollen vortex viability so bad it is when you have a harsh winter so nothing is able to bloom and then all of a sudden they bloom at the same time. It gave a lot of particles and pollen in the air at the same time. We were talking about this. What are the current pollen conditions because they said next week will be really bad. If you consider mediumhigh not so bad that is what we have today. A little bit of the rainfall. Next week, pollen count goes right back up to the high. What can people do to help the situation . If its going to be this bad we need to be prepared. If you know you suffer from pollen allergies, you have to stay inside. If you exercise were if you have to go out make sure you keep the windows rollup in your car. Stay inside and keep the windows closed and ac unit on. What are the signs it is an allergy and not a cold. Analogy, you will have itchy eyes, itchy nose, itchy throat, watery eyes and a runny nose. When it comes to a cold, some of the time you may have a low grade fever and have fatigue and more congested. I know you said stay inside. Some of us cant always be inside but there are a few over thecounter medications. Can you walk us through this . One of the most recent ones that have come over the counter that used to be prescription strength are the nasal steroids to decrease inflammation in the nose. The biggest find we need is flonase nasal spray. It is to sprays to each nostril. So this works really well and decreases inflammation in the nose. Applications over there . We have lovely medications. Nondrowsy formula is overthe counter from any cbs pharmacy. The first one is surtax. Once a day dosing. We have good and triedandtrue loratadine which is claritin as well as alegre. Thank you for being with us. We will have a last check of a series with consumer investigators from across the area. The topic is on the issue of collectors. Joining me is the investigative Florida Department of agriculture and Consumer Services. Can you explain these calls and how much more sophisticated they are getting. What is happening is people a lot of information is available in terms of phone numbers and addresses a partial Social Security numbers. These individuals will contact that person and try to come up with a scam explaining how they bills or some kind of thing like that trying to obtain more information. Regarding bank censuses security and the work. The followup would be what can i as a person answering the phone due to protect myself. Bank accounts and credit card accounts you will know what should and should not be there. If anytime anybody calls you and you have no idea who they to them. Even the rest of your name. Then they will have the whole thing. They are fishing for information they can glean from will do harm. When in doubt, hang up. You participated in the phone bank earlier this month and spoke to people on the robo and the bill collectors that are aggressive. What was the biggest concern . All victims of that from time to time. If you are receiving goes on a regular basis we urge everyone to contact us and we will start an investigation if possible. Find out who these people are and get them to stop. Is there times of the year where they are more prevalent . More around this time of year because it is taxis and. People will call and posing as the irs or other bill collectors or tax preparers saying there is an issue. Thank you for coming and. We will continue the series on Consumer Protection issues throughout march. For now, thank you. We are working to keep you and your family safe as chances of rain ramp up today. It will be warm at the strawberry festival today. 80 in tampa today and tomorrow but pulling off and clearing out into spring break week. A lot of Police Departments adopt and train canines but here this is a baby orphan kangaroo in australia, could joe. That will leave you with a starting right now on this week with george stephanopoulos. Trump rally chaos. As the billionaire businessman marches to the nomination, his rallies erupt sba violence, fear, confusion. Back it up clashes. I would have been oit there fighting, folks. Boom. Blame. Donald trump has created a toxic environment. Responsibility begins and ends at the top. With just two days before the crucial winnertakeall primaries, can trump be stop snd all three of his rivals, kasich,