that s good news. but what s new this morning, what s important for our viewers is that the national hurricane center has just hoisted hurricane watches. that s basically for the coastal regions from st. petersburg, florida, right through the big ben region. we re talking about the west coast of florida. this is significant that the hurricane watch exists because they see, just like the meteorologists on the cnn weather team, the potential of tropical storm elsa restrengthening. it is now over open water. it s no longer over western cuba where it loses its heating source and it gets disrupted by the mountains in that area. the warm ocean waters give it that fuel for the engine to really fire back up again. so some slight to moderate strengthening is forecast, and that s why they believe by the time this makes landfall late tonight into early wednesday morning across that big ben region of florida, it could be near or at hurricane strength. we also have storm surge warning. that encompa
land, loses its ocean source, its heating source that weakens some and reemerges across the florida straits where it has the potential of restrengthening once again. we ve zoomed in across the florida peninsula. the forecast track does not include the miami-dade county region. it doesn t mean by the nature of tropical systems this area won t experience gusty winds, strong rain and the potential of flooding as well as some other locally spined up tornadoes that are common with tropical systems of this nature. the arrival of tropical storm force winds monday morning at the earliest, continues will deteriorate for surfside, monday evening through tuesday and the potential for two to four inches of rainfall possible across that area with locally higher amounts up to a foot across the extreme southwestern sections of florida as well as the keys. kim? we ll stay on top of that. thanks, derek van dam. we have an update on breaking news, at least 17