storm surges up to seven feet as well as dangerous rip currents. millions of americans are headed to the beach for the fourth of july. all of that happening at the same time. janice dean is in the weather center tracking the path of the hurricane and how it will impact everybody s plans. we had a landfall around 11:00 eastern time as a category 2 storm. so the storm did strengthen to 100 mile-per-hour sustained winds with higher gusts and there s cape lookout. peter doocy, he ll start to experience, he s at nags head, the eye so that period of calm, he ll get that period of calm where we don t have wind gusts, we don t have rain so it s going to be interesting to go to him over at nags head. let s take a look at the satellite presentation right here. again, still a category 2 storm. want to make mention this is the earliest hurricane ever to make landfall in the u.s., okay.
still expected to hit parts of massachusetts, cape cod, martha s vineyard and nantucket island preparing for heavy rains and heavy winds. we should say we re about seven minutes away from a new update from the hurricane group. janice dean is tracking that. will give us an update shortly. sometimes we get it early. we ll break in and give you the latest. we re almost done with the system. started its northeastern acceleration. clearing the outer banks right now. the eye of the storm we re still going to see some battering winds and waves and rainfall. there s the landfall about six hours ago around 11:00 at cape lookout and its barrelled to the northeast ever since. let s zoom in. i was talking about it on twitter, peter doocy experiencing that calm eye. not a lot of people people get to experience that. it s pretty darn cool. but, again, he s going to start to see those outer rain bands and the winds and even some of that storm surge on the back
we ll talk to him in a little bit because he ll experience the eye of that storm that calm period you get and then the back side which will produce incredible winds and rain and storm surge. so he really needs to be cautious. peter, if you re listening to me this is the mom in me saying you need to be careful out there because it can be deceiving. he gets that eye, that period of calm and you think that s okay then you get the worst side of the storm coming in. you ladies asked me about the tropical activity. we re at the very beginnings of the season. typically we see the most activity in august and september. and this is the strongest hurricane making landfall in the u.s. since 2008. we have had a very strong hurricane drought in terms of land falling hurricanes. so there you mentioned sustained winds at 100 miles per hour. that s still the case making landfall around cape lookout and the eye is about to move over
and while the main airports in oklahoma city and st. louis, missouri, have re-opened, all morning departures out of oklahoma city are cancelled and now there is another threat that is looming, heavy rain from the same storm system could trigger flash floods. and today s forecast also includes large hail and the potential for tornadoes. and officials are warning people, stay inside. and they were waiting for daylight to assess the damage. for oklahoma to indiana, more potentially dangerous thunderstorms, flash floods and battering winds, still a major threat. let s go to the cnn weather center. it seems like i could be wrong, but is this tornado season, is it stronger or worse than previous ones? it s not up to par to what we typically see.
it s bad news. this is a strong nor easter that s going to hit areas that have seen historic damage. a lot of folks here still without power, and we re going to be dealing with sub-freezing temperatures overnight tonight. let s zoom on in where we re getting a mix of rain and snow and sleet. it s going to be a very, very messy and dangerous commute home for a lot of folks along jersey up towards long island, new york city and then moving into connecticut and portions of northern new england where we re seeing the snow event. some of the storm totals, this is an aggressive computer model that we re looking at, but we could, we could see over 6, maybe 7 inches of snow across new jersey spreading up towards southern new york and in towards new england. so some impressive snow totals. snow is one of the hardest things to forecast, so we ll keep an eye on that. but, of course, the battering winds and waves and storm surge and the cold temperatures, megyn, i can t stress this enough, people