meteorologist michelle grossman who s tracking the storm. good morning, it keeps on intensifying? i francis, and it will keep on intensifying. now a major storm, we re looking at a category three storm with winds of 140 miles per hour. it is moving fast, moving to the north of 15 miles per hour, now 90 miles west of cedar key florida. there is the eye, we have outer rain bands. the reds and oranges and yellows showing where that rainfall is happening. we have so many alerts, 18 million people impacted throughout florida, georgia, south carolina, and north carolina because we still will see some flooding by thursday. late wednesday into thursday. into portions of the carolinas as well. here s the track category three storm, now it will make landfall, expected to be a category four storm, a life-threatening storm surge, really destructive winds and rainfall. we could see up to 10 to 12 inches of landfall in some spots. also the chance for some landfall and tornadoes, so as we go throug
taking time to get through. to your point about the tornado warning, seeing more active radar with three active warnings with the bands onshore and with the forward speed of this storm, i think the rain bands will wrap up up across northeastern florida, georgia and carolinas and severe weather threat continuing to push northeast, where we re monitoring landfall. and jane, that is important to point out. think about the best analogy is an ice skater, they pull their arm and tighten their spin, that is what this storm will be doing. forward motion increases and bands tighten up and you get more intense winds in the tropical bands. having forward motion pick up, it will be forward hit and it will impact inland areas,
greatest threats on the advancing side of this system. so for that reason, this presents a significant threat, and we re just a few moments out from getting the latest information, jane, from the national hurricane center. jane: yeah, and you take a look at the forecast cone there, i think we want to take you through the timing of this storm because overnight, you know, these outer rain bands are going to continue to quickly approach, you know, where we re expecting to see that land fall. tampa, of course, has already been through the thick of it over the last couple of hours as that rain has filled in. it s a category 2 storm now but that rapid intensification expected by land fall, that s a category 4 storm, and then because it s such a thin piece of land between, you know, the gulf coast and then the florida/georgia line expecting to see the impact of at least a category 1 hurricane in southeast georgia. ian: right. and the issue here, outside of being horribly susceptible to st
go, hurricane warnings that extend all the way up into southern georgia because of what we were talking about, the fast forward motion of this system. there won t be enough time for it to spin down with the friction over land before it moves up into georgia. jane: yeah so you need to be alert hunkering down as the morning opens up we re going to be seeing that really strong major category 4 hurricane potentially making impact there. ian: looks like we have video coming in out of a lucia county nearly all of florida seeing impacts from hurricane idalia. let s bring in fox 35 orlando reporter patrick perez. he s live in va lucia county. patrick what are the conditions now because we were just discussing some of these bands that moved from west to east across the peninsula, both sides of the state have been feeling these impacts reporter: ian i have to tell you for the most part tonight has been pretty calm except for probably within the past hour or so the wind has picked up.
trees especially with the saturated soils. this really unwelcomed, you know, middle part of the week as we go wednesday into thursday. ian: yeah all of that green represents flood watches that run up through the carolinas as this system brings with it several inches of rain. this is a look at our exclusive fox model, there you go with what we re expecting to be that major hurricane at land fall. this is lunchtime tomorrow jane. jane: and i want to point out the tornado risks that could come with these outer rain bands that shift inland from charleston into columbia into the carolinas. this outer rain band as the storm is kind of interacting with land, the friction of the forward movement of this storm is going to bring in that severe weather component so you need to make sure you re keeping your fox weather alerts turned on, have those notifications of the danger that could be coming as we go throughout the day. keep your phones charged up because of course the fox weather app is w