huge population. it would be located about here. that would be close to the northeast eye portion. they may get the winds in the middle of the night a lot higher than they were thinking. that s 8:00 a.m. tomorrow morn. let s point out a little farther. this is as we go through monday at 8:00 p.m. down to a tropical storm. notice that they don t have it going into the atlanta area. this was the other amazing step. it kind of rains itself out. once we get through monday night the winds won t cause many more issues. this is from the hurricane center. irma has a very large wind field. the hurricane forced winds still extend 80 miles from the center. so that s still 60 miles, 160 miles in all different directions. this is the mind boggling part. the tropical force winds extend outward from the center 415 miles. that s only from the center out.
radar composite. and the white shows you the cloud cover shield, which still goes from cuba all the way to clouds now. if you walk outside in north carolina and look up in the sky, those are the clouds from irma far to your south. the green shows you the rain shield. all the way now approaching central sections of georgia and south carolina. and we still have rain bands down there in the florida straits. i can estimate it would take me about 15 hours to drive that far, to go all the way through this storm. this is the eye of the center as it made landfall, as we went throughout the 4:00 hour near marco island. and now it still hasn t even reached the i-4 corridor here. it s taking its sweet time. i want to point out we still have tornado warnings in effect. one is for the titusville area. look at this outer band. it comes up approaching areas in the bahamas. it comes back up into the space coast. and there is probably 70 miles per hour wind gusts like that. we had a tornado warnings wi
hearing that off and on as these bands come through orlando. now orlando has been desolate, really, for the past two days in terms of the roadways and the theme parks, completely empty. a total ghost land, which would typically be a high population tourist area with lots of families on vacation. they are hunkered down in hotels. if you drive through international drive, every parking lot is packed with cars. and those folks are hunkered down because of what we re experiencing now. for most of today, the weather has been pretty mild. but as irma moved up the coast, orlando was in sight and now is really at the center of the storm. so we re seeing wind gusts that are up to 75 miles an hour. we can feel the rain still pelting down on us. and again, that whistling sound is what really starts to shake folks, because that is really what is concerning about the tornado warnings, the threat of tornadoes hitting this area is very high right now. we re under tornado watches and warnings for most
the storms need warm water. we re not saying this is strengthening over land, but it s maintaining its strength. now it s closing on the i-4 corridor. these winds tonight are going to be pretty scary it looks like as if we hold this together with possible 100-miles-per-hour gusts here coming up to the north. so we ve been doing this since the storm in the eye was to the south. and for our friends here and the lakeland area, you are only 26 miles away from being in that northern eye. let s go take it up here to orlando. the downtown orlando area now only 56 miles away. we only have, we re right now around 14 miles per hour to the north. a little quick dirty math on that. about 3 1/2 hours, you d like to see that weaken in three and a half hours before it gets to the orlando area. the little bend in i-4 here as you head down towards the disney complex in celebration, and you re only about 46 miles away now from that northern eye. i got to tell you, the morning started, i never thought i
the radar again for the orlando area, i just want to point out one feature. that folks unfamiliar with florida may not know. when we look at orlando and then to the right, when we talk about places like titusville, what we call the space coast, when you re nasa back in the 1950s looking at the best place to shoot off a rocket, eventually to the moon, you re going to pick this place that juts out from the coast of florida for safety reasons. and to keep it away from land. if you re living out there on the space coast tonight and in a lot of past hurricanes, you re feeling awfully vulnerable out there as in often that little jut is often the first place weather arrives. that area took it really hard. when we talk back to the gene and the francis, that area hit that area especially hard there on the space coast and just south of there down towards