weather center and patrick oppmann is in cuba for us. good evening to both of you. petra, i ll start with. you are looking at pictures released today by nasa, a live view of hurricane ian that can be seen from the international space station as it fights over the storm. that is massive. where is hurricane ian right now? what can we expect? don, we just got the advisory here. it s about 1100 miles south of the western tip of cuba. crew the brunt of the storm system is gonna be felt initially in cuba in the coming hours, don, we think this will increase to a category three possibly as early as the next three hours. beyond that, we watch what s in store here. the water temperatures across this region of the gulf of mexico are among the warmest oceanic heat content anywhere in the atlantic. you notice the model of cannons here is a bit all over the place the last couple days. really, the last 24 hours better agreement. the storm track will shift a little further towards the eas
they have four shelters opening this morning at this hour here. they can hold about 4,000 people. but the evacuation order right now under way for zone a is about 40,000 people. so they re hoping that they will use those shelters as a last resort and go find family or friends on the east coast of florida or just get out of town. i spoke with the spokesperson for the emergency operations center here in punta gorda and he told me that their motto is hide from wind and run from water. he said a wall of water is not your friend. so you don t want to stick around here in punta gorda. certainly the north of here as you know, there is a lot of concern and the tampa area, the st. peterburg mayor certainly has been voicing his concern saying this could be the storm that they never hoped would come to their shores. and, of course, the director of the national hurricane center saying that this could be the storm of a lifetime and the near worst case scenario for tampa bay and that is be
the storm right now packing maximum sustained winds of 125 miles per hour. it is expected to strengthen further over the next 24 hours, and that s alarming to hear. ian is expected to hit florida s west coast late wednesday into thursday, and nearly 7 million people along the coast, including really all of tampa bay, a facing the risk of a life-threatening storm surge there. and people, they are all being urged to get out of harm s way and to do it now. tampa s mayor warning residents, if you can leave, just leave now. those are his words. florida s governor, ron desantis, announcing that the tampa bay airport will be closed starting tonight at 5:00 eastern time. he also expect he has also expected, desantis to speak at any moment from tallahassee. we ll give you detainee on those preparations from the storm and bring you his update live in just moment. we are covering this dangerous storm. the only way cnn can. let s go first to our carlos flores, who joins us in tampa
now hitting south florida and the storm s eye is off of cuba s coast moving into the warm waters which means the storm could grow and get for powerful. it hit werp cuba hard overnight with winds and heavy rain just at-battering the island. the forecast models have it projected to make landfall in tampa bay as a major hurricane. storm surge is one of the biggest threats from the storm. and as much as two feet of rain could be falling in some parts of florida from this. officials there saying right now they are urging people into the storm s path to make the final presentations and of course to get out before it is too late. let s start with cnn s meteorologist chad myers tracking this for us. what is the latest. it does look like the 11:00 advisory has brought this storm a little bit farther to the south. we re still waiting for what we call the discussion. all of the words that they use to describe what their reason was, what the meaning is, where this is going from here. s
i told each one of them, my conversation separately, whatever they need. sincerely, whatever they need, contact me directly. joining me now jamie rome, acting director of the national hurricane center. good to have you with us this hour. we saw in the most recent update, the 2:00 p.m. update that the storm was rapidly intensifying. the major concern at this hour seems to be the storm surge and also just how long this storm could sit. what are the areas that you re most focused on at this hour? i think water is going to be the big issue with this storm, both the incredibly heavy rainfall. you can see it starting to sweep over the southern portions of the florida peninsula. and the storm surge near to the east of where the center makes landfall, and those two when they combine together, it creates a lot of flooding issues. speaking the the mayor of tampa in the last hour, she was pointing to the separate saturation that they re already seeing on the ground there that they