miles an hour. it down trees and power lines, even without power. created storm surge in areas like fort myers and naples, florida. officials are warning residents about potential for flash flooding overnight, some areas inland could see over two feet of rain. let s go now to nbc news meteorologist michelle gross. michelle, you have been following the storm all day. what is the latest? i, there we are looking at really strong storm still. it is moving inland but we are still seeing winds at 90 miles an hour. so it s still moving on to his strength. it was a very storm strong category four storm, almost category five, really wide in distance as well and moving very slow. so, it s three things that kind of came together to make the worst-case scenario. we saw a really strong winds up to 135 mile an hour wind gusts in cape coral. and i was the story with the storm surge. what storm surges is a push of wind. it s a push of water, salt water, onto dry land. so, we saw feet,
i m sorry, this past summer, it is brutal. and we see rising temperatures which heats we ve for to see some very violent storms coming through, even afternoon rains are no longer just the afternoon rain said i grew up with. they are serious storms that come off the waters. so we have to prepare as a state. we have to fortify ourselves and be ready for the eventuality of this happening every year on one of the co-signs. and especially in the tampa bay area, we are kind of a horseshoe shape. so if the water rushes in or pushes in to tampa bay has nowhere to go but down to the land and into the homes and we just see tides that are changing the flow of water. and we have a lot of work to do and it s nothing that we have
a big responsibility. we re the first private citizen crew to go to the international space station. so frankly, we need to get this thing right. they have a much bigger plan. the first all-private and commercial life habitat space station. the astronauts are all inside settled into the spacex dragon in their seats. the hatch is docked and the arm has been pulled away from the rocket stack. they will dock with the space station tomorrow and do research for eight days. after three days of very heavy afternoon rains here on the space coast, things are looking perfect. weather is 90% favorable for the 11:17 eastern time launch. very exciting in the capsule for those four guys right now who paid $50 million each to do it.
localized flash flooding will be an issue, especially in the midwest. more storms expected as we head through the day. we get that day time heating, storms firing through the afternoon. the corridor we re watching with the highest tornado threat across central and northern missouri back into northeastern oklahoma. john and diana, back to you. thanks, jim. for the rest of today s weather, it s going to be clear and hot for most of the east coast. florida gets the usual afternoon rains. stormy stuff that jim was talking about coming across the middle of the nation. dry and summerlike for the rockies and the southwest. 75 degrees in los angeles. dry 99 degrees in phoenix. boston hits 88. two degrees warmer than new orleans. miami, low to mid-60s in the pacific northwest. an amazing play on the baseball diamond involving a couple that has clearly made a match in heaven. that is why this is our favorite story of the day. just months after taesha benson gave her kidney to her fiance
they hope this weekend they can get precipitation. that will be most welcome here as colorado deals with a difficult fire as well as montana and the other states we talked about, jon. jon: the afternoon rains would be welcome. thanks very much. jenna: speaking of mother nature, mother nature also leaving its mark across the mid-atlantic. storms killed at least 17 people leaving more than 2 million others without power in the middle of the dangerous heatwave they ve been experiencing, all of this from a series of violence storms tearing across nine u.s. states and also tearing across our nation s capitol. we usually find our chief congressional spor correspondent mike manual at the capitol but not today. it s been unbelievable, a rough 72 hours for folks in the greater washington area this complex behind me 179 apartments evacuated since late night friday night. when the storm hit it took the