core, the eye wall, you can see the vertical development to these storms. keep in mind we measured that we have cody bro, that s what a hundred miles offshore still? yeah, so we re scanning this at a very high altitude and cody is showing you here this eye is about 11 miles across. it s been that tiny pin hole that emerged earlier this evening. the issue is that when you have small inner cores to haines, they re more prone to rapid intensification, becoming stronger and quickly, to a much lesser extent we saw this over on the southern texas gulf coast with harold which used its final hours out over the gulf of mexico to become a significantly more intense. this is a whole different ball game here. this is what we re expecting to soon be a major hurricane on up to a cat 4 when this makes land fall in the big bend. and you can t see some of these bands extending yeah. you can see all of them with
ian: welcome back to fox weather, we would like to extend a special welcome here to our viewers on fox news tonight with a simulcast also on a number of affiliates across the country as we track what we re expecting to soon be major hurricane idalia i m ian oliver. jane: and i m jane minar, fox news with you every step of the way every connected tv device and check in on your phone 24/7 download the free fox weather app. idalia impacting all parts of florida, billy woods joining us on the phone. billy thanks for joining us this evening. you talk about what your office is doing getting into the final stages of this storm and what it s been like so far. you know, the bands are beginning to reach us here now, and we ve had some good rain
let s bring in nbc meteorologist michelle grossman who is tracking the storm. michelle, good morning. good morning francis. we re looking at a lot of impacts of the storm. which get the latest advisory, now a category three storms are as expected it continues to strengthen and we will see it make landfall within the next six hours, as a category four storm. here is the irate there, we see outer rain bands, bright colors of reds, oranges, yellows bringing heavy rain right now. all sorts of tropical warning 17 million people affected where you see the red. that is a hurricane warning. we have tropical storm watches extending all the way up through portions of the carolinas, and that will be a story over the next 24 hours. let s track it for you now, a category three storm by 8 am, that s when we expect that landfall there as a category four storm, it s going to bring heavy rain, life-threatening storm surge, we will see storm surge is up to ten feet, 12 feet in some spots. that is goin
cat 4 status before it makes landfall. jane: you can see the deeper convection bubbling up on the southwestern side of the eye. you know, as that continues to wrap around, we consider the dirty side of the storm up across the northeast. that s going to help bring in the tightening of that eye circulation, the intensification happening especially as that pinhole potentially gets a little bit smaller but you can see already the outer rain bands making their way on shore. the 60 mile-per-hour gusts as you mentioned there in sarasota. this is a classic textbook form of what you would consider a major hurricane. you know, you get those outer rain bands that continue to shift in, and it s within those individual bands and now you have smaller, you know, more isolated threats of wind gusts, tropical storm force winds, but also, too, the tornado threat. we don t want to forget there s a tornado watch in place for the western coast of florida up around the big bend as the bands shift their wa
what are conditions like overnight and dealing with outer rain bands? my night different, i slept between 7:30 and 2:00. overnight was pretty quiets, around 3:00 in the morning, it already past us, it is raining, the band that came through had a punch, stronger winds over 30 miles per hour and we ll be riding out the rains bands. i m close to the university. university of florida is 60 s,000 kids. think about the locations. i met a couple exchange students from australia, i reminded them, this is like a cyclone in your