turn around. neil: your confidence is infectious. thanks, charles. thanks, neil. neil: one thing that can get in the way of this maybe nor disney world in florida is this storm. it s not as bad as a storm as it was. it s a tropical depression. still a threat. rick reichmuth on that. hi, rick. hi, neil. yeah. we re going to be getting some rain out of this. rain is our biggest problem. that said, the storm still has plenty of time over water, warm water and we have seen the storms strengthen quickly. the center of the storm to the north of the cuba coastline, the southern cuban coastline. that said, take a look at the radar. there s nothing happening around the center of the storm to indicate all day long. you look at the visible satellite. you can see the rotation there. until you get storms back around the center, you re not going to see much of a strengthening storm at all. the tropical models, all of them
drive on those brinldges. let s show you what is going on with the hurricane. when i show you this satellite image, you ll see what we re tarking about. look at that giant swirl. the big white clouds pulling the moisture across south florida. and wrapping it around in the hurricane. we ve been watching the storm that was dragging most of the day yesterday and evening through the night all across the cuba coastline waiting for it to finally pop out and make that move and say okay, we re moving across the florida straits on our way to the keys. lost a little strength during that interaction with the coastal area, the northern coast of cuba, the cuba key area. now we ll watch the warm water restrengthen that hurricane. hurricane center says it will be a cat 4. so we ll expect that it will maintain that strength as a cats 4. as it works toward the keys sunday at about 8:00 a.m. so the idea is that sunday by 8:00 a.m., we have the land falling hurricane moving right across the southern most
major ecimpact of the winds wil be. it will happen very soon within a matter of hours. jeff patterson, thanks for your report. safety to your family i hope. we ll be thinking about all of you folks. and wherever it lands, the storm is expected to cause that dangerous storm surge. take a look at the waves. they are already whipping the coast of myself. we ll go live there to check on conditions as the outer bands of the storm begin to move in. and as we head to a break, check this out. dolphins air lifted to safety in cuba ahead of irma s landfall there. six dolphins had to be removed from an aquarium and taken by helicopter to the southern part of the country. are
the keys. now, watch this track go on up. we re still the big question is sunday by 8:00 p.m., do we touch land with the center of that storm right around ft. myers or do we continue the jog up toward tampa. and tampa as you ve been discussings bay, tampa bay, everything is about the position of that hurricane. the better position for everyone in that area is to already have the storm on shore and not have it pass offshore. offshore, they get the strong solid push of water right into p tampa bay. if that storm is on shore, they don t get the worst part moving that water. still going to be a problem for tampa bay. but we re hoping that the system is already onshore by that time. let s talk about the waters and why it would strengthen. everyone is going why wouldn t it just stay a cat 3 good it has weakened over cuba. it has the warm water temperature, 87, 89 degrees the
last check. so very close to 90 degrees. so as you move that s what is left of that s and it s still holding together over that very warm water, it redevelopments and restrengthens. and that is why the hurricane center believes that it will be a cat 4 when it makes contact with the keys. and where you are in miami, when will they see the worst of it? we re going to get it in bands. as soon as that storm starts to move close to the keys, we re getting if you would-on tropical storm to hurricane-force winds all day. but at this point when we showed you the satellite image, you could see the streaking white clouds across. we ve been watching the radar very carefully and just got a band through here of very heavy rain. that will happen periodically now throughout the rest of the day and the evening. and it s in those bands that we re earn canned that people on the east coast will get injured. we already have about 7,000 power outages in broward county in for the lat. lauderdale area. w