last, say, 12 hours. there may be some weakening as it gets close to making landfall. but in the meantime, this is a powerful dangerous storm. category 4 storm. now, 105 miles east-southeast of cape fear, north carolina. 130 mile per hour winds. its movement is west-northwest at 16 miles per hour. so the forward speed has picked up a little bit. so here we are, some time early friday morning. a category 3 storm. what i want to emphasize is don t pay attention to that. that number is not the important thing. the important thing is the landfall, where it comes, and then what happens after it makes landfall. the strongest side of the storm is to the east and north. so anywhere north and east of that landfall is going to see the strongest storm surge or the strongest winds. and so that s what we re looking at. however, this system is going to meander.
we ll start off with that. 845 miles east-southeast of cape hatteras. 130-mile-per-hour winds. moving west-northwest, faster, at 17 miles per hour. we ll get an update at 5k fr:00m the national hurricane center. the models each run have been changing when we think there s going to be landfall. right now, best guesstimate as a category 3 storm making landfall friday around 8:00 a.m. but that could go either way. six hours in either direction. so we re going to have to continue to watch this. everybody to the north and east of the eye of the storm, when it comes onshore, will be seeing the most severe impacts. but look at what happens, nicolle, as this comes inland, it s still a potent system. that s sunday at 8:00 a.m. we re going to be talking about this until monday or tuesday, if we re lucky. but it could also stall out along the coast. we re watching right now hurricane watches from north carolina, virginia border, down to eddisville beach and storm
from let s say the mid atlantic states through new england. then of course, we have maria which is on a path directly for puerto rico at this point. and then we have lee at this hour in the central atlantic. so let s take a look and go through the details right now. tropical storm jose, again, as of 8:00 a.m., 270 miles east-southeast of cape hatteras, north carolina. winds 85 miles per hour. keep in mind, this storm, this storm is going to make a right-hand turn, but what it s going to bring to sections of the northeast and new england are high waves, winds which could be tropical storm strength, beach erosion and significant danger right along the eastern seaboard. that s number one. then as we widen the picture, of course, we take a look at those impacts right through the midweek as the storm continues to churn its way off the new england coastline. that is an issue but the major issue, the thing we re watching most definitely is maria. and maria at this hour is
at this point it s very, very active. we have jose up here, menacing the eastern seaboard of the united states. there s maria and there s lee in the background. lee much less of a concern that will wind up becoming what we call a remnant low. again, a stormy condition out in the atlantic. let s take a look at jose. that continues to churn up. the details are as follows. this is a category 1 storm, 265 miles east-southeast of cape hatteras. winds at 175 miles an hour and heading to the north at about 9. not much expected to change here but as it makes its northern and eventually eastern turns, it is going to bring some strong winds, beach erosion, heavy surf, dangerous conditions to coastal new england and into the tri-state area stretching down into delaware. so, we ve got tropical storm watches and warnings there. in the meantime, this is what we are most worried about. that is maria, as it continues
away any time soon. this is going to stay a category 3 hurricane or perhaps get a little stronger. yeah. we re going to be dealing with this for a long time. john, thank you so much. let s go right now to bonnie, who is watch thing storm from the weather center. we were listening to john there together. he said it s going to stay a category 3, but this has been on our radar for so long and it s not going away. it s been a long haul of it. right now, the center is 55 miles east-southeast of melbourne, florida. it s still a category three, which is a major hurricane, nothing to not take seriously. let s take a look at the track. riding the periphery of florida, as john was talking about, it s that west side that is going to impact areas near the space coast in the next few hours.