and even into daybreak on tuesday. we re anywhere between, say, an additional five to eight inches . a couple of spots, again, eight to 12 inches of rainfall. canutt be ruled out of the question. and parts of northeast florida, that s going to a very likely place to talk about storm surge in st. james over st. john s river. and that s one of the big concerns that we ll see really for the northeast coast of florida as we go into the next 24 hours. but take a look. the storm surge that we saw in places like naples, florida, in fact, naples, florida, we lost the gauge because of the immense amount of power from the water that moved inland. and it really inundated these homes. we had curfews in place, shelter in place for naples, florida, because all of that storm surge that reached record levels, fort myers, florida, top water levels. i mean, we smashed the record in fort myers the last time that we saw the record of storm surge is three point three six feet. and that was actually from
were so powerful? and i think it was over 120 miles per hour. and i think one thing to note, too, is that it really took a long time for ian to weaken. it was hours on end of category three strength impacting the coast. and you talk about those images, i don t think we ve really even scratched the surface. it s going to be sunrise here. in a couple hours when we re really blown away with the damage and the destruction, particularly there on the western side of the state of florida. i just can t even imagine. you know, you talk about the winds that we ve seen that entered southwest florida with wind gusts over 120 miles per hour. i mean, i ve never it s hard to even fathom what that would look like. but clearly, you can see what the damage has been in its wake. right. so it is the tremendous amount of damage the downed trees, the power lines at one . at one point, we were talking about power out to over to a million people in the state of florida.
you can t take advantage of that power. so as we take a look at the track of hurricane ivan continues to remain a category one as it lifts into the space coast throughout the morning hours, we are anticipating it to emerge into the atlantic off the coast of florida throughout the day today. on thursday, but it s really going to have a healthy amount of time into the warmer waters that are just off the coast of georgia and florida to perhaps keep its strength as a strong tropical storm . there is a slim window that we could see restrengthening back into that category. one sometime, perhaps thursday night into early friday. we ll watch for that forecast closely. hence why there is a hurricane watch in place for our coastlines in georgia and south carolina. so places like savannah, georgia, don t let this sneak up on you, make those preparations. now we take a look at what the average water temperatures are just off the coast of florida and georgia. and this is a key component in the fore
front of you because of the tremendous amount of rainfall that we re seeing. thank goodness at this point, and especially at this time, not very many people on the roadway, but just south of some of the big parks in orlando and toward downtown orlando and the kissimmee, we go again, the red just indicating where we re tracking more tremendous rainfall that way. and then up toward titusville in the i-95 corridor, one of the reasons why flood watches are still ongoing at this hour, not only for parts of central florida, but also for parts of southeast georgia as well. my goodness, the winds were whipping all of this rain. you can see the power of it. and as moved through venice, florida, the palm trees barely hanging on , stop signs were shaking. just take a listen to that. and this is going to be something that s going to continue to unfold. hurricane force, wind gusts are
we are expecting to see those wind gusts continue to peak in that 70 mile per hour range. right now, sustained winds with hurricane ivan are at seventy five miles per hour. so it s not out of the realm that we will see those gusts, even sustained winds at times within the 50 to 60 mile per hour range in the coming hours. what that s going to do is if you haven t already lost power, you are at risk for losing power. here s a look at some of our current winds. so this is sustained winds across central florida. thirty three mile per hour sustained wind out of orlando, cocoa beach. we have gusts up to about fifty three daytona beach, 19 mile per hour winds. so it s a bit breezy, but it s certainly going to continue to pick up. and i m sure you can hear that wind outside the window as well. the wind direction out of orlando, leesburg, all coming out of the north just to show you that that center of circulation, that core of ian still off to your south as it continues to lift up, we will see