florida and when. allison. that s right, john. we take a look at the current numbers that we have right now, irma is a category 3 storm and a very strong category 3 storm. winds right now 125 miles per hour, just five miles per hour stronger and it would be a category 4 storm. you re talking a difference of 5 miles per hour here. so don t focus on the category number so much but the intensity of the winds. movement is west at about 9 miles per hour. but we have started to see at least a slight shift off to the north as well. one of the big concerns is going to be maximum wind gusts. take a look at some of these numbers. key west we re talking around 138 miles per hour. this will be at the peak as the storm is crossing over that region. naples and ft. myers also in that 130 to 130-mile-per-hour range. even tampa likely to be around 116. now, the east coast while it may not be as strong, you re still talking pretty strong wind gusts. in fact, orlando looking at 95 miles per hour for th
this tornado watch, remains in effect until 8:00 a.m. local time. another watch issued on top of that. three unconfirmed tornados reported in the past 24 hours. these are the two bands i m talking about in particular. you see they stretch off into the open waters here. one just off to the west of mobile. one well to the east. new orleans here, along the louisiana-mississippi border. but you can see that drier air punched into new orleans. looks like, the worst over for new orleans. could get the band coming back in. plenty of rain to go for mississippi. especially in the system. continue to drift its way northwest. crawling at 5 miles per hour. hopefully see that speed up as we head through the day. and jim, let me ask you a question here. a lot of folks were surprised by the damage of the storm. people say, oh, it s a category 1. katrina, a 3, not much comparison. they re saying storm surge was similar in the storm to katrina seven years ago. because there is not a direct correlatio